---
title: It is seldom indeed that a subject can beat a king at chess, and thi… — Irish Fairy Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: It is seldom indeed that a subject can beat a king at chess, and this monarch was properly amazed. Who acts: enormity, subject, monarch. 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 51

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It is seldom indeed that a subject can beat a king at chess, and this monarch was properly amazed.

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**Who acts:** enormity, subject, monarch · **What happens:** be, beat · **To what, where:** king, chess

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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 (enormity, subject, monarch), 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:pg2892:21:51
# text = It is seldom indeed that a subject can beat a king at chess, and this monarch was properly amazed.
1	It	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	4	nsubj	_	_
2	is	be	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	4	cop	_	_
3	seldom	seldom	ADV	RB	_	4	advmod	_	_
4	indeed	indeed	ADV	RB	_	20	advmod	_	_
5	that	that	SCONJ	IN	_	9	mark	_	_
6	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	7	det	_	_
7	subject	subject	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	9	nsubj	_	_
8	can	can	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	9	aux	_	_
9	beat	beat	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	4	advcl	_	_
10	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	11	det	_	_
11	king	king	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	9	obj	_	_
12	at	at	ADP	IN	_	13	case	_	_
13	chess	chess	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	9	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	20	punct	_	_
15	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	20	cc	_	_
16	this	this	DET	DT	Number=Sing|PronType=Dem	17	det	_	_
17	monarch	monarch	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	20	nsubj	_	_
18	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	20	cop	_	_
19	properly	properly	ADV	RB	_	20	advmod	_	_
20	amazed	amazed	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
21	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	20	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is** | present | enormity |  |  |  |  | indeed, seldom *property* | tree rules |
| 2 | **beat** | can | a subject | a king |  | chess |  |  | tree rules |
| 3 | **is** | past | this monarch |  |  |  |  | amazed, properly *property* | 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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