---
title: “Watch these and this and that,” Fionn would have been told, “and al… — Irish Fairy Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: “Watch these and this and that,” Fionn would have been told, “and always swim with a knife in your teeth.” Who acts: you. A sentence of «Irish Fairy Tales» by James Stephens, Chapter VII, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Irish Fairy Tales, Chapter VII, sentence 16

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“Watch these and this and that,” Fionn would have been told, “and always swim with a knife in your teeth.”

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**Who acts:** you · **What happens:** watch, tell, swim · **To what, where:** these, Fionn, teeth · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «Irish Fairy Tales» by James Stephens, Chapter VII. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (you), 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:pg2892:20:16
# text = “Watch these and this and that,” Fionn would have been told, “and always swim with a knife in your teeth.”
1	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	2	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	Watch	watch	VERB	VB	Mood=Imp|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	these	this	PRON	DT	Number=Plur|PronType=Dem	2	obj	_	_
4	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	5	cc	_	_
5	this	this	PRON	DT	Number=Sing|PronType=Dem	3	conj	_	_
6	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	7	cc	_	_
7	that	that	PRON	DT	Number=Sing|PronType=Dem	2	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	2	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	2	punct	_	_
10	Fionn	Fionn	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	14	nsubj:pass	_	_
11	would	would	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	14	aux	_	_
12	have	have	AUX	VB	VerbForm=Inf	14	aux	_	_
13	been	be	AUX	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part	14	aux:pass	_	_
14	told	tell	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	2	parataxis	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	19	punct	_	_
16	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	19	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	19	cc	_	_
18	always	always	ADV	RB	PronType=Tot	19	advmod	_	_
19	swim	swim	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	14	conj	_	_
20	with	with	ADP	IN	_	22	case	_	_
21	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	22	det	_	_
22	knife	knife	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	19	obl	_	_
23	in	in	ADP	IN	_	25	case	_	_
24	your	your	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Person=2|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	25	nmod:poss	_	_
25	teeth	tooth	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	19	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
26	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
27	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **watch** *in a quote* | imperative | you *not said here* | these |  |  |  | that *obl* | tree rules |
| 2 | **tell** *speech: assert* | would · perfect · passive |  | Fionn |  |  |  |  | vn transfer\_mesg-37.1.1-1-1 «NP V NP.recipient»: subject=Recipient |
| 3 | **swim** *in a quote* | present |  |  |  | your teeth |  | with a knife; always *property* | vn run-51.3.2-1 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Theme in tooth=Trajectory |

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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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