---
title: May the gods protect my going as they protected my coming,” said the… — Irish Fairy Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: May the gods protect my going as they protected my coming,” said the robber piously. Who acts: gods, my. 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/pg2892/26/21/)

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# Irish Fairy Tales, Chapter XIII, sentence 21

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May the gods protect my going as they protected my coming,” said the robber piously.

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**Who acts:** gods, my · **What happens:** protect, go, come, say · **To what, where:** robber · **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 (gods, my), 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:pg2892:26:21
# text = May the gods protect my going as they protected my coming,” said the robber piously.
1	May	may	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	4	aux	_	_
2	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	3	det	_	_
3	gods	god	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	4	nsubj	_	_
4	protect	protect	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
5	my	my	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Sing|Person=1|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	6	nsubj	_	_
6	going	go	VERB	VBG	VerbForm=Ger	14	ccomp	_	_
7	as	as	SCONJ	IN	_	9	mark	_	_
8	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	9	nsubj	_	_
9	protected	protect	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	6	ccomp	_	_
10	my	my	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Sing|Person=1|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	11	nsubj	_	_
11	coming	come	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	9	xcomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	11	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	9	punct	_	_
14	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	4	conj	_	_
15	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	16	det	_	_
16	robber	robber	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	14	obj	_	_
17	piously	piously	ADV	RB	_	14	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
18	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **protect** | may | the gods |  |  |  |  |  | vn defend-72.3 «NP V S\_ING»: agent=Agent |
| 2 | **go** | gerund | my |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7 «NP V S-Quote»: agent=Agent clause=Topic |
| 3 | **protect** | past | gods *= god* |  |  |  |  |  | vn defend-72.3 «NP V S\_ING»: agent=Agent clause=Beneficiary |
| 4 | **come** | gerund | my |  |  |  |  |  | vn escape-51.1-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 5 | **say** *speech: assert* *in a quote* | past | the gods *not said here* | the robber |  |  |  | piously *property* | tree rules |

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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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