---
title: “Qu--,” said the duck, and he disappeared before he had time to get… — Irish Fairy Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: “Qu--,” said the duck, and he disappeared before he had time to get the “-ack” out of him. Who acts: Qu. A sentence of «Irish Fairy Tales» by James Stephens, Chapter IV, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Irish Fairy Tales, Chapter IV, sentence 32

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“Qu--,” said the duck, and he disappeared before he had time to get the “-ack” out of him.

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**Who acts:** Qu · **What happens:** say, disappear, have, get · **To what, where:** duck, ack · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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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 (Qu), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

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**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:pg2892:17:32
# text = “Qu--,” said the duck, and he disappeared before he had time to get the “-ack” out of him.
1	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	2	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	Qu	Qu	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	6	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
3	--	--	PUNCT	,	_	2	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
4	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	2	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
5	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	2	punct	_	_
6	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
7	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	8	det	_	_
8	duck	duck	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	12	punct	_	_
10	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	12	cc	_	_
11	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	12	nsubj	_	_
12	disappeared	disappear	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	6	conj	_	_
13	before	before	SCONJ	IN	_	15	mark	_	_
14	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	15	nsubj	_	_
15	had	have	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	12	advcl	_	_
16	time	time	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	15	obj	_	_
17	to	to	PART	TO	_	18	mark	_	_
18	get	get	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	16	acl	_	_
19	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	22	det	_	_
20	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	22	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
21	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	22	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
22	ack	ack	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	18	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
23	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	22	punct	_	_
24	out	out	ADP	IN	_	26	case	_	_
25	of	of	ADP	IN	_	26	case	_	_
26	him	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	18	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
27	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	6	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **say** *speech: assert* | past | Qu | the duck |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V NP.topic»: agent=Agent duck=Topic |
| 2 | **disappear** | past | Qu |  |  |  |  |  | vn disappearance-48.2-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 3 | **have** | past | Qu |  |  |  | time |  | vn birth-28.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent |
| 4 | **get** | to-infinitive | Qu *not said here* | the ack |  |  |  | out Fionn | vn comprehend-87.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Experiencer ack=Stimulus |

<!-- .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.

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**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.

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- ↑ back to [Chapter IV](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg2892/17/)