---
title: “Who are you?” roared the staring black-mouth with the red tongue sq… — Irish Fairy Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: “Who are you?” roared the staring black-mouth with the red tongue squirming in it like a frisky fish. Who acts: you, red tongue. 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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[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg2892/19/20/)

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# Irish Fairy Tales, Chapter VI, sentence 20

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“Who are you?” roared the staring black-mouth with the red tongue squirming in it like a frisky fish.

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**Who acts:** you, red tongue · **What happens:** be, roar, stare, squirm · **To what, where:** staring black mouth, tongue

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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 (you, red tongue), 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:pg2892:19:20
# text = “Who are you?” roared the staring black-mouth with the red tongue squirming in it like a frisky fish.
1	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	7	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	Who	who	PRON	WP	PronType=Rel	7	nsubj	_	_
3	are	be	AUX	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=2|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	2	cop	_	_
4	you	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Person=2|PronType=Prs	2	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
5	?	?	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	2	punct	_	_
7	roared	roar	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
8	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	12	det	_	_
9	staring	stare	VERB	VBG	VerbForm=Ger	12	amod	_	_
10	black	black	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	12	amod	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	10	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	mouth	mouth	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	obj	_	_
13	with	with	ADP	IN	_	16	case	_	_
14	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	16	det	_	_
15	red	red	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	16	amod	_	_
16	tongue	tongue	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	12	nmod	_	_
17	squirming	squirm	VERB	VBG	VerbForm=Ger	16	acl	_	_
18	in	in	ADP	IN	_	19	case	_	_
19	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	17	obl	_	_
20	like	like	ADP	IN	_	23	case	_	_
21	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	23	det	_	_
22	frisky	frisky	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	23	amod	_	_
23	fish	fish	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	17	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
24	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	7	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is a** *in a quote* | present | you |  |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **roar** | past |  | the staring black mouth |  |  |  | with the red tongue | vn sound\_emission-43.2 «PP.location V NP»: agent=Location mouth=Theme |
| 3 | **stare** | gerund |  |  |  |  |  |  | vn peer-30.3 «NP V PP.theme»: agent=Agent |
| 4 | **squirm** | gerund | the red tongue *not said here* |  |  | tongue |  | like a frisky fish | vn body\_internal\_motion-49.1 «NP V»: agent=Agent |

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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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- ← previous: [sentence 19](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg2892/19/19/)
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- ↑ back to [Chapter VI](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg2892/19/)