---
title: Iollan knew the appearance of Fionn’s messenger, but he was surprise… — Irish Fairy Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: Iollan knew the appearance of Fionn’s messenger, but he was surprised to see her. Who acts: Iollan, Fionn. 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/pg2892/29/31/)

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# Irish Fairy Tales, Chapter II, sentence 31

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Iollan knew the appearance of Fionn’s messenger, but he was surprised to see her.

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**Who acts:** Iollan, Fionn · **What happens:** know, be, see · **To what, where:** appearance, sister

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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 (Iollan, Fionn), 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:pg2892:29:31
# text = Iollan knew the appearance of Fionn’s messenger, but he was surprised to see her.
1	Iollan	Iollan	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	2	nsubj	_	_
2	knew	know	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	4	det	_	_
4	appearance	appearance	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	2	obj	_	_
5	of	of	ADP	IN	_	8	case	_	_
6	Fionn	Fionn	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	8	nmod:poss	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	’s	's	PART	POS	_	6	case	_	_
8	messenger	messenger	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	13	punct	_	_
10	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	13	cc	_	_
11	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	13	nsubj	_	_
12	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	13	cop	_	_
13	surprised	surprised	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	2	conj	_	_
14	to	to	PART	TO	_	15	mark	_	_
15	see	see	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	13	advcl	_	_
16	her	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	15	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **know** | past | Iollan | the appearance of Fionn's messenger |  |  |  |  | vn comprehend-87.2-1-1-1 «NP V NP PP.attribute»: agent=Experiencer appearance=Stimulus |
| 2 | **is** | past | Fionn |  |  |  |  | surprised *property* | tree rules |
| 3 | **see** | to-infinitive | Fionn *not said here* | sister |  |  |  |  | vn comprehend-87.2-1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Experiencer she=Stimulus |

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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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