---
title: “The cuckoo calling from the tree that is highest in the hedge,” cri… — Irish Fairy Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: “The cuckoo calling from the tree that is highest in the hedge,” cried his merry son. Who acts: cuckoo, merry son. 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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[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg2892/21/39/)

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# Irish Fairy Tales, Chapter VIII, sentence 39

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“The cuckoo calling from the tree that is highest in the hedge,” cried his merry son.

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**Who acts:** cuckoo, merry son · **What happens:** call, be, cry · **To what, where:** tree, hedge · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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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 (cuckoo, merry son), 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:pg2892:21:39
# text = “The cuckoo calling from the tree that is highest in the hedge,” cried his merry son.
1	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	10	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	The	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	3	det	_	_
3	cuckoo	cuckoo	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	10	nsubj	_	_
4	calling	call	VERB	VBG	VerbForm=Ger	3	acl	_	_
5	from	from	ADP	IN	_	7	case	_	_
6	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	7	det	_	_
7	tree	tree	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	obl	_	_
8	that	that	PRON	WDT	PronType=Rel	10	nsubj	_	_
9	is	be	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	10	cop	_	_
10	highest	high	ADJ	JJS	Degree=Sup	16	nsubj	_	_
11	in	in	ADP	IN	_	13	case	_	_
12	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	13	det	_	_
13	hedge	hedge	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	10	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	10	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	10	punct	_	_
16	cried	cry	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
17	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	19	nmod:poss	_	_
18	merry	merry	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	19	amod	_	_
19	son	son	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	16	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
20	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	16	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **call** *in a quote* | gerund | the cuckoo *not said here* |  |  | the tree |  |  | vn get-13.5.1 «NP V NP PP.source»: agent=Agent from tree=Source |
| 2 | **is** *in a quote* | present | the cuckoo |  |  | the hedge |  | high *property* | tree rules |
| 3 | **cry** *speech: express* | past | Oisi’n's merry son |  |  |  |  |  | vn manner\_speaking-37.3 «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 38](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg2892/21/38/)
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- ↑ back to [Chapter VIII](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg2892/21/)