---
title: “Why do you live on the bank of a river?” was one of these questions. — Irish Fairy Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: “Why do you live on the bank of a river?” was one of these questions. Who acts: you. A sentence of «Irish Fairy Tales» by James Stephens, Chapter IX, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Irish Fairy Tales, Chapter IX, sentence 7

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“Why do you live on the bank of a river?” was one of these questions.

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**Who acts:** you · **What happens:** live, be · **To what, where:** bank, one · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «Irish Fairy Tales» by James Stephens, Chapter IX. 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:pg2892:22:7
# text = “Why do you live on the bank of a river?” was one of these questions.
1	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	5	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	Why	why	ADV	WRB	PronType=Int	5	advmod	_	_
3	do	do	AUX	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=2|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	5	aux	_	_
4	you	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Person=2|PronType=Prs	5	nsubj	_	_
5	live	live	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	15	csubj	_	_
6	on	on	ADP	IN	_	8	case	_	_
7	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	8	det	_	_
8	bank	bank	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	obl	_	_
9	of	of	ADP	IN	_	11	case	_	_
10	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	11	det	_	_
11	river	river	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	8	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	?	?	PUNCT	.	_	5	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	5	punct	_	_
14	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	15	cop	_	_
15	one	one	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	0	root	_	_
16	of	of	ADP	IN	_	18	case	_	_
17	these	this	DET	DT	Number=Plur|PronType=Dem	18	det	_	_
18	questions	question	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	15	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
19	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	15	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **live** *in a quote* | present · do-support | you |  |  | the bank of a river |  |  | vn exist-47.1-1 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Theme on bank=Location |
| 2 | **is a** | past |  | one |  |  |  | of this questions | 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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