---
title: “I will not eat a piece of its skin that is as small as the point of… — Irish Fairy Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: “I will not eat a piece of its skin that is as small as the point of its smallest bone,” said the resolute and trembling bard. Who acts: resolute, skin. 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 71

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“I will not eat a piece of its skin that is as small as the point of its smallest bone,” said the resolute and trembling bard.

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**Who acts:** resolute, skin · **What happens:** not eat, be, say, tremble, point · **To what, where:** piece, bard, smallest bone · **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 (resolute, skin), 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:pg2892:23:71
# text = “I will not eat a piece of its skin that is as small as the point of its smallest bone,” said the resolute and trembling bard.
1	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	5	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	5	nsubj	_	_
3	will	will	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	5	aux	_	_
4	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	5	advmod	_	_
5	eat	eat	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	24	ccomp	_	_
6	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	7	det	_	_
7	piece	piece	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	obj	_	_
8	of	of	ADP	IN	_	10	case	_	_
9	its	its	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	10	nmod:poss	_	_
10	skin	skin	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	nmod	_	_
11	that	that	PRON	WDT	PronType=Rel	14	nsubj	_	_
12	is	be	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	14	cop	_	_
13	as	as	ADV	RB	_	14	advmod	_	_
14	small	small	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	10	acl:relcl	_	_
15	as	as	ADP	IN	_	17	case	_	_
16	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	17	det	_	_
17	point	point	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	14	obl	_	_
18	of	of	ADP	IN	_	21	case	_	_
19	its	its	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	21	nmod:poss	_	_
20	smallest	small	ADJ	JJS	Degree=Sup	21	amod	_	_
21	bone	bone	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	17	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
22	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	5	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
23	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	5	punct	_	_
24	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
25	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	26	det	_	_
26	resolute	resolute	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	24	obj	_	_
27	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	28	cc	_	_
28	trembling	tremble	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	26	conj	_	_
29	bard	bard	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	28	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
30	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	24	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **not** **eat** *in a quote* | future | the resolute *= resolute* | a piece of piece's skin |  |  |  |  | vn eat-39.1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent piece=Patient |
| 2 | **is** *in a quote* | present | piece's skin |  |  |  |  | as the point of piece's smallest bone; small *property* | tree rules |
| 3 | **say** *speech: assert* | past | the resolute |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent clause=Topic |
| 4 | **tremble** | gerund | the resolute *not said here* | bard |  |  |  |  | vn modes\_of\_being\_with\_motion-47.3 «PP.location V NP»: agent=Location bard=Theme |
| 5 | **point** *in a quote* |  |  | piece's smallest bone |  |  |  |  | nom point «cognition transitive»: of=patient |

<!-- .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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