---
title: “What!” his master demanded wrathfully, “is a spear to be thrown at… — Irish Fairy Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: “What!” his master demanded wrathfully, “is a spear to be thrown at an unarmed stranger? 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/pg2892/3/25/)

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# Irish Fairy Tales, Chapter II, sentence 25

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“What!” his master demanded wrathfully, “is a spear to be thrown at an unarmed stranger?

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**What happens:** demand, be, throw · **To what, where:** spear, unarmed stranger · **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: 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:pg2892:3:25
# text = “What!” his master demanded wrathfully, “is a spear to be thrown at an unarmed stranger?
1	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	7	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	What	what	PRON	WP	PronType=Rel	7	nsubj:outer	_	SpaceAfter=No
3	!	!	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
4	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	2	punct	_	_
5	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	6	nmod:poss	_	_
6	master	master	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	nsubj	_	_
7	demanded	demand	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
8	wrathfully	wrathfully	ADV	RB	_	7	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	13	punct	_	_
10	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	13	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	is	be	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	13	cop	_	_
12	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	13	det	_	_
13	spear	spear	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	obl	_	_
14	to	to	PART	TO	_	16	mark	_	_
15	be	be	AUX	VB	VerbForm=Inf	16	aux:pass	_	_
16	thrown	throw	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	13	acl	_	_
17	at	at	ADP	IN	_	20	case	_	_
18	an	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	20	det	_	_
19	unarmed	unarmed	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	20	amod	_	_
20	stranger	stranger	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	16	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
21	?	?	PUNCT	.	_	7	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **demand** *speech: request* | past |  |  |  |  |  | wrathfully *property* | vn require-103-1 «NP V NP S\_INF»: agent=Theme |
| 2 | **is a** *in a quote* | present |  | a spear |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 3 | **throw** *in a quote* | to-infinitive · passive |  |  |  | a unarmed stranger |  |  | vn throw-17.1-1-1 «NP V NP PP.destinations»: at stranger=Destination |

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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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