---
title: If they were not youngsters, the bold Fiacuil could not have managed… — Irish Fairy Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: If they were not youngsters, the bold Fiacuil could not have managed them all. Who acts: poets. A sentence of «Irish Fairy Tales» by James Stephens, Chapter VI, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Irish Fairy Tales, Chapter VI, sentence 15

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If they were not youngsters, the bold Fiacuil could not have managed them all.

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**Who acts:** poets · **What happens:** not be, not manage · **To what, where:** youngsters

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This is a sentence of «Irish Fairy Tales» by James Stephens, Chapter VI. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (poets), 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:pg2892:19:15
# text = If they were not youngsters, the bold Fiacuil could not have managed them all.
1	If	if	SCONJ	IN	_	5	mark	_	_
2	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	5	nsubj	_	_
3	were	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	5	cop	_	_
4	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	5	advmod	_	_
5	youngsters	youngster	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	13	nsubj:pass	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	5	punct	_	_
7	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	9	det	_	_
8	bold	bold	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	9	amod	_	_
9	Fiacuil	Fiacuil	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	13	nsubj	_	_
10	could	could	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	13	aux	_	_
11	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	13	advmod	_	_
12	have	have	AUX	VB	VerbForm=Inf	13	aux	_	_
13	managed	manage	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	0	root	_	_
14	them	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	13	obj	_	_
15	all	all	DET	DT	PronType=Tot	14	nmod:unmarked	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	13	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **not** **is a** *a condition, not said to happen* | past | poets *= poet* | youngsters |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **not** **manage** | could · perfect · passive |  | youngsters |  |  |  |  | tree rules |

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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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