---
title: “What did he say?” her sister of the Shi’ would ask. — Irish Fairy Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: “What did he say?” her sister of the Shi’ would ask. Who acts: whistle, Shi. A sentence of «Irish Fairy Tales» by James Stephens, Chapter II, 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/pg2892/29/15/)

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# Irish Fairy Tales, Chapter II, sentence 15

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“What did he say?” her sister of the Shi’ would ask.

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**Who acts:** whistle, Shi · **What happens:** say, ask · **To what, where:** sister · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «Irish Fairy Tales» by James Stephens, Chapter II. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (whistle, Shi), 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:pg2892:29:15
# text = “What did he say?” her sister of the Shi’ would ask.
1	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	5	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	What	what	PRON	WP	PronType=Int	5	obj	_	_
3	did	do	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	5	aux	_	_
4	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	5	nsubj	_	_
5	say	say	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	?	?	PUNCT	.	_	5	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	5	punct	_	_
8	her	her	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	9	nmod:poss	_	_
9	sister	sister	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	obj	_	_
10	of	of	SCONJ	IN	_	15	mark	_	_
11	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	12	det	_	_
12	Shi	Shi	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	15	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	’	's	PART	POS	_	12	case	_	_
14	would	would	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	15	aux	_	_
15	ask	ask	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	9	acl	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	5	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **say** *speech: assert* *in a quote* | past · do-support | whistle | Uct's sister |  |  |  |  | vn pronounce-29.3.1 «NP V NP NP»: agent=Agent what=Theme sister=Manner |
| 2 | **ask** *speech: ask* | would | the Shi | Uct's sister *not said here* |  |  |  |  | vn inquire-37.1.2 «NP V NP.recipient»: agent=Agent sister=Recipient |

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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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