---
title: If your salmon tastes as nice as my thumb did,” he laughed, “it will… — Irish Fairy Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: If your salmon tastes as nice as my thumb did,” he laughed, “it will taste very nice.” Who acts: salmon, thumb, Fionn. A sentence of «Irish Fairy Tales» by James Stephens, Chapter X, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Irish Fairy Tales, Chapter X, sentence 48

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If your salmon tastes as nice as my thumb did,” he laughed, “it will taste very nice.”

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**Who acts:** salmon, thumb, Fionn · **What happens:** taste, do, laugh

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This is a sentence of «Irish Fairy Tales» by James Stephens, Chapter X. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (salmon, thumb, Fionn), 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:pg2892:23:48
# text = If your salmon tastes as nice as my thumb did,” he laughed, “it will taste very nice.”
1	If	if	SCONJ	IN	_	4	mark	_	_
2	your	your	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Person=2|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	3	nmod:poss	_	_
3	salmon	salmon	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	nsubj	_	_
4	tastes	taste	VERB	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	14	advcl	_	_
5	as	as	ADP	IN	_	6	case	_	_
6	nice	nice	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	4	xcomp	_	_
7	as	as	SCONJ	IN	_	10	mark	_	_
8	my	my	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Sing|Person=1|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	9	nmod:poss	_	_
9	thumb	thumb	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	10	nsubj	_	_
10	did	do	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	6	advcl	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	4	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	4	punct	_	_
13	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	14	nsubj	_	_
14	laughed	laugh	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	19	punct	_	_
16	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	19	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	19	nsubj	_	_
18	will	will	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	19	aux	_	_
19	taste	taste	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	14	ccomp	_	_
20	very	very	ADV	RB	_	21	advmod	_	_
21	nice	nice	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	19	xcomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
22	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	19	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
23	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	19	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **taste** *a condition, not said to happen* | present | your salmon |  |  |  |  | nice *property* | vn stimulus\_subject-30.4 «NP V ADJ»: agent=Stimulus |
| 2 | **do** | past | my thumb |  |  |  |  |  | vn act-114-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 3 | **laugh** *in a quote* | past | Fionn |  |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 4 | **taste** | future | thumb |  |  |  |  | nice *property* | vn stimulus\_subject-30.4 «NP V ADJ»: agent=Stimulus |

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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 47](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg2892/23/47/)
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