---
title: Many a person can see a thing and believe a thing and know just as l… — Irish Fairy Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: Many a person can see a thing and believe a thing and know just as little about it as the person who does neither. Who acts: Many person, person. A sentence of «Irish Fairy Tales» by James Stephens, Chapter XII, 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/pg2892/25/36/)

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# Irish Fairy Tales, Chapter XII, sentence 36

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Many a person can see a thing and believe a thing and know just as little about it as the person who does neither.

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**Who acts:** Many person, person · **What happens:** see, believe, know, do · **To what, where:** thing, neither

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This is a sentence of «Irish Fairy Tales» by James Stephens, Chapter XII. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Many person, person), 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:pg2892:25:36
# text = Many a person can see a thing and believe a thing and know just as little about it as the person who does neither.
1	Many	many	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	3	amod	_	_
2	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	3	det	_	_
3	person	person	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	nsubj	_	_
4	can	can	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	5	aux	_	_
5	see	see	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	0	root	_	_
6	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	7	det	_	_
7	thing	thing	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	obj	_	_
8	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	9	cc	_	_
9	believe	believe	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	5	conj	_	_
10	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	11	det	_	_
11	thing	thing	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	9	obj	_	_
12	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	13	cc	_	_
13	know	know	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	9	conj	_	_
14	just	just	ADV	RB	_	16	advmod	_	_
15	as	as	ADV	RB	_	16	advmod	_	_
16	little	little	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	13	ccomp	_	_
17	about	about	ADP	IN	_	18	case	_	_
18	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	16	nmod	_	_
19	as	as	ADP	IN	_	21	case	_	_
20	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	21	det	_	_
21	person	person	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	16	nmod	_	_
22	who	who	PRON	WP	PronType=Rel	23	nsubj	_	_
23	does	do	VERB	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	21	acl:relcl	_	_
24	neither	neither	DET	DT	PronType=Neg	23	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
25	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	5	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **see** | can | a Many person | a thing |  |  |  |  | vn comprehend-87.2-1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Experiencer thing=Stimulus |
| 2 | **believe** | infinitive | a Many person *not said here* | a thing |  |  |  |  | vn admire-31.2 «NP V NP»: agent=Experiencer thing=Stimulus |
| 3 | **know** | present | a Many person *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn comprehend-87.2-1-1-1 «NP V»: agent=Experiencer |
| 4 | **do** | present | the person | neither |  |  |  |  | vn act-114-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent neither=Eventuality |

<!-- .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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