---
title: Such an invitation is a challenge; it is almost, among boys, a decla… — Irish Fairy Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: Such an invitation is a challenge; it is almost, among boys, a declaration of war. Who acts: invitation. A sentence of «Irish Fairy Tales» by James Stephens, Chapter VIII, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Irish Fairy Tales, Chapter VIII, sentence 13

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Such an invitation is a challenge; it is almost, among boys, a declaration of war.

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**Who acts:** invitation · **What happens:** be, declare · **To what, where:** challenge, war

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This is a sentence of «Irish Fairy Tales» by James Stephens, Chapter VIII. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (invitation), 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:pg2892:21:13
# text = Such an invitation is a challenge; it is almost, among boys, a declaration of war.
1	Such	such	DET	PDT	PronType=Ind	3	det:predet	_	_
2	an	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	3	det	_	_
3	invitation	invitation	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	nsubj	_	_
4	is	be	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	6	cop	_	_
5	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	6	det	_	_
6	challenge	challenge	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	;	;	PUNCT	,	_	13	punct	_	_
8	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	13	nsubj	_	_
9	is	be	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	13	cop	_	_
10	almost	almost	ADV	RB	_	13	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	10	punct	_	_
12	among	among	ADP	IN	_	13	case	_	_
13	boys	boy	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	6	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	16	punct	_	_
15	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	16	det	_	_
16	declaration	declaration	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	conj	_	_
17	of	of	ADP	IN	_	18	case	_	_
18	war	war	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	16	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
19	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	6	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is a** | present | such invitation | a challenge and boys and a declaration of war |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **is** | present | invitation |  |  |  |  | among boys; almost *property* | tree rules |
| 3 | **declare** |  |  | war |  |  |  |  | nom declaration «communication transitive»: of=patient |

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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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