---
title: You had to go fast to keep away from the switch behind, and a small… — Irish Fairy Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: You had to go fast to keep away from the switch behind, and a small boy feels a switch. Who acts: You, small boy. A sentence of «Irish Fairy Tales» by James Stephens, Chapter IV, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

<!-- md -->
[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg2892/17/3/)

<!-- crumbs -->
[home](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) / [corpora](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/) / [tales](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/) / [Irish Fairy Tales](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg2892/) / [Chapter IV](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg2892/17/) / 3

# Irish Fairy Tales, Chapter IV, sentence 3

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
You had to go fast to keep away from the switch behind, and a small boy feels a switch.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** You, small boy · **What happens:** have, go, keep away, feel · **To what, where:** switch

<!-- .vabout -->
This is a sentence of «Irish Fairy Tales» by James Stephens, Chapter IV. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (You, small boy), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

<!-- .note-en -->
**Parsed by Mova, not checked by a teacher.** This tree is Mova's own parse (the `en` model, on the CPU, when the site is built); it may be wrong.

## The tree {#tree}

```conllu
# sent_id = book:pg2892:17:3
# text = You had to go fast to keep away from the switch behind, and a small boy feels a switch.
1	You	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Person=2|PronType=Prs	2	nsubj	_	_
2	had	have	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=2|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	to	to	PART	TO	_	4	mark	_	_
4	go	go	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	2	xcomp	_	_
5	fast	fast	ADV	RB	Degree=Pos	4	advmod	_	_
6	to	to	PART	TO	_	7	mark	_	_
7	keep	keep	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	4	advcl	_	_
8	away	away	ADV	RB	_	7	advmod	_	_
9	from	from	ADP	IN	_	11	case	_	_
10	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	11	det	_	_
11	switch	switch	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	8	obl	_	_
12	behind	behind	ADV	RB	_	11	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	18	punct	_	_
14	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	18	cc	_	_
15	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	17	det	_	_
16	small	small	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	17	amod	_	_
17	boy	boy	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	18	nsubj	_	_
18	feels	feel	VERB	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	2	conj	_	_
19	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	20	det	_	_
20	switch	switch	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	18	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
21	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **have** | past | You |  |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **go** | to-infinitive | You *not said here* |  |  |  |  | fast *property* | vn disappearance-48.2-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 3 | **keep away** | to-infinitive | You *not said here* |  |  |  |  | away *property* | vn keep-15.2 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent |
| 4 | **feel** | present | a small boy | a switch |  |  |  |  | vn hunt-35.1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent switch=Theme |

<!-- .note -->
One row per clause the reader finds. «not said here»: a role filled from the clause above. «roles by»: a VerbNet class and frame when one fits the verb, else the reader's rules on the tree.

<!-- div src -->

**Text:** «Irish Fairy Tales» by James Stephens, Project Gutenberg book 2892 (public domain in the USA). **Tree:** Mova's own parse, Elamur Cosmic License. **Frames:** Mova's frames reader (`prag`), the chapter read in order.

<!-- /div -->

<!-- pn -->
- ← previous: [sentence 2](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg2892/17/2/)
- next →: [sentence 4](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg2892/17/4/)
- ↑ back to [Chapter IV](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg2892/17/)