---
title: The crows will tell a secret if no one else does; and under a bush,… — Irish Fairy Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: The crows will tell a secret if no one else does; and under a bush, behind a clump of bracken, what eyes may there not be! Who acts: crows, one, eyes. A sentence of «Irish Fairy Tales» by James Stephens, Chapter V, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Irish Fairy Tales, Chapter V, sentence 37

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The crows will tell a secret if no one else does; and under a bush, behind a clump of bracken, what eyes may there not be!

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**Who acts:** crows, one, eyes · **What happens:** tell, do, not there, be · **To what, where:** secret, bush · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «Irish Fairy Tales» by James Stephens, Chapter V. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (crows, one, eyes), 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:pg2892:18:37
# text = The crows will tell a secret if no one else does; and under a bush, behind a clump of bracken, what eyes may there not be!
1	The	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	2	det	_	_
2	crows	crow	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	4	nsubj	_	_
3	will	will	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	4	aux	_	_
4	tell	tell	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	0	root	_	_
5	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	6	det	_	_
6	secret	secret	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	obj	_	_
7	if	if	SCONJ	IN	_	11	mark	_	_
8	no	no	DET	DT	PronType=Neg	9	det	_	_
9	one	one	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	11	nsubj	_	_
10	else	else	ADV	RB	_	9	advmod	_	_
11	does	do	VERB	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	4	advcl	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	;	;	PUNCT	:	_	16	punct	_	_
13	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	16	cc	_	_
14	under	under	ADP	IN	_	16	case	_	_
15	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	16	det	_	_
16	bush	bush	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	parataxis	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	20	punct	_	_
18	behind	behind	ADP	IN	_	20	case	_	_
19	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	20	det	_	_
20	clump	clump	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	16	conj	_	_
21	of	of	ADP	IN	_	22	case	_	_
22	bracken	bracken	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	20	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
23	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	27	punct	_	_
24	what	what	PRON	WP	PronType=Int	27	obj	_	_
25	eyes	eye	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	27	nsubj	_	_
26	may	may	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	27	aux	_	_
27	there	there	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	16	parataxis	_	_
28	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	27	advmod	_	_
29	be	be	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	27	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
30	!	!	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **tell** *speech: assert* | future | the crows | a secret |  |  |  |  | vn transfer\_mesg-37.1.1-1-1 «NP V NP.recipient»: agent=Agent secret=Recipient |
| 2 | **do** *a condition, not said to happen* | present | no one |  |  |  |  |  | vn act-114-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 3 | **not** **there** | may | eyes | a bush and a clump of bracken |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 4 | **be** | infinitive | eyes *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn exist-47.1 «NP V»: agent=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.

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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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