---
title: “That is true,” the boy answered, “but I do not know how you know it.” — Irish Fairy Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: “That is true,” the boy answered, “but I do not know how you know it.” Who acts: That, boy, you. 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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[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg2892/23/52/)

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# Irish Fairy Tales, Chapter X, sentence 52

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“That is true,” the boy answered, “but I do not know how you know it.”

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**Who acts:** That, boy, you · **What happens:** be, answer, not know, know · **To what, where:** name · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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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 (That, boy, 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:pg2892:23:52
# text = “That is true,” the boy answered, “but I do not know how you know it.”
1	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	4	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	That	that	PRON	DT	Number=Sing|PronType=Dem	4	nsubj	_	_
3	is	be	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	4	cop	_	_
4	true	true	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
5	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	4	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	4	punct	_	_
7	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	8	det	_	_
8	boy	boy	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	9	nsubj	_	_
9	answered	answer	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	4	parataxis	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	16	punct	_	_
11	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	16	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	16	cc	_	_
13	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	16	nsubj	_	_
14	do	do	AUX	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	16	aux	_	_
15	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	16	advmod	_	_
16	know	know	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	9	ccomp	_	_
17	how	how	ADV	WRB	PronType=Int	19	advmod	_	_
18	you	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Person=2|PronType=Prs	19	nsubj	_	_
19	know	know	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=2|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	16	ccomp	_	_
20	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	19	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
21	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
22	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is** *in a quote* | present | That |  |  |  |  | true *property* | tree rules |
| 2 | **answer** *speech: assert* | past | the boy |  |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 3 | **not** **know** *in a quote* | present · do-support | the boy *= boy* |  |  |  |  |  | vn comprehend-87.2-1-1-1 «NP V how S\_INF»: agent=Experiencer clause=Stimulus |
| 4 | **know** *in a quote* | present | you | name |  |  |  |  | vn comprehend-87.2-1-1-1 «NP V NP PP.attribute»: agent=Experiencer it=Stimulus |

<!-- .note -->
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 51](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg2892/23/51/)
- next →: [sentence 53](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg2892/23/53/)
- ↑ back to [Chapter X](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg2892/23/)