---
title: A man it was, almost as skilled in darkness as Fionn himself “This i… — Irish Fairy Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: A man it was, almost as skilled in darkness as Fionn himself “This is no enemy,” Fionn thought; “his walking is open.” Who acts: man, This, Fionn, walking. A sentence of «Irish Fairy Tales» by James Stephens, Chapter XIII, 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/pg2892/26/13/)

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# Irish Fairy Tales, Chapter XIII, sentence 13

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A man it was, almost as skilled in darkness as Fionn himself “This is no enemy,” Fionn thought; “his walking is open.”

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**Who acts:** man, This, Fionn, walking · **What happens:** be, think, walk · **To what, where:** darkness, enemy · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «Irish Fairy Tales» by James Stephens, Chapter XIII. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (man, This, Fionn, walking), 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:pg2892:26:13
# text = A man it was, almost as skilled in darkness as Fionn himself “This is no enemy,” Fionn thought; “his walking is open.”
1	A	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	2	det	_	_
2	man	man	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	8	nsubj	_	_
3	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	8	nsubj	_	_
4	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	8	cop	_	SpaceAfter=No
5	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	8	punct	_	_
6	almost	almost	ADV	RB	_	8	advmod	_	_
7	as	as	ADP	IN	_	8	case	_	_
8	skilled	skilled	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	0	root	_	_
9	in	in	ADP	IN	_	10	case	_	_
10	darkness	darkness	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	8	obl	_	_
11	as	as	SCONJ	IN	_	22	mark	_	_
12	Fionn	Fionn	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	22	nsubj	_	_
13	himself	himself	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Emp|Reflex=Yes	12	nmod:unmarked	_	_
14	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	18	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	This	this	PRON	DT	Number=Sing|PronType=Dem	18	nsubj	_	_
16	is	be	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	18	cop	_	_
17	no	no	DET	DT	PronType=Neg	18	det	_	_
18	enemy	enemy	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	12	appos	_	SpaceAfter=No
19	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	18	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
20	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	18	punct	_	_
21	Fionn	Fionn	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	18	flat	_	_
22	thought	think	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	8	advcl	_	SpaceAfter=No
23	;	;	PUNCT	,	_	28	punct	_	_
24	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	28	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
25	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	26	nmod:poss	_	_
26	walking	walking	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	28	nsubj	_	_
27	is	be	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	28	cop	_	_
28	open	open	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	8	parataxis	_	SpaceAfter=No
29	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	8	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
30	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	8	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is** | past | a man |  |  | darkness |  | almost, skilled *property* | tree rules |
| 2 | **is a** *in a quote* | present | This | no enemy |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 3 | **think** *speech: other* | past | Fionn  Fionn |  |  |  |  |  | vn focus-87.1-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 4 | **is** *in a quote* | present | Fionn's walking |  |  |  |  | open *property* | tree rules |
| 5 | **walk** *in a quote* |  | Fionn |  |  |  |  |  | nom walking «act intransitive»: poss=agent |

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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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