---
title: They did look at him, but it was a look which he could not comprehend. — Irish Fairy Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: They did look at him, but it was a look which he could not comprehend. Who acts: signs, glance, chase. A sentence of «Irish Fairy Tales» by James Stephens, Chapter I, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

<!-- md -->
[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg2892/33/12/)

<!-- crumbs -->
[home](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) / [corpora](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/) / [tales](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/) / [Irish Fairy Tales](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg2892/) / [Chapter I](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg2892/33/) / 12

# Irish Fairy Tales, Chapter I, sentence 12

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
They did look at him, but it was a look which he could not comprehend.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** signs, glance, chase · **What happens:** look, be, not comprehend · **To what, where:** look

<!-- .vabout -->
This is a sentence of «Irish Fairy Tales» by James Stephens, Chapter I. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (signs, glance, chase), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

<!-- .note-en -->
**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:pg2892:33:12
# text = They did look at him, but it was a look which he could not comprehend.
1	They	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	3	nsubj	_	_
2	did	do	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	3	aux	_	_
3	look	look	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	0	root	_	_
4	at	at	ADP	IN	_	5	case	_	_
5	him	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	3	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	11	punct	_	_
7	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	11	cc	_	_
8	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	11	nsubj	_	_
9	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	11	cop	_	_
10	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	11	det	_	_
11	look	look	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	conj	_	_
12	which	which	PRON	WDT	PronType=Rel	16	obj	_	_
13	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	16	nsubj	_	_
14	could	could	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	16	aux	_	_
15	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	16	advmod	_	_
16	comprehend	comprehend	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	11	acl:relcl	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **look** | past · do-support | signs *= sign* |  |  |  |  | at chase | vn peer-30.3 «NP V PP.theme»: agent=Agent at he=Theme |
| 2 | **is a** | past | glance | a look |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 3 | **not** **comprehend** | could | chase | a look |  |  |  |  | vn comprehend-87.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Experiencer which=Stimulus |

<!-- .note -->
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.

<!-- div src -->

**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.

<!-- /div -->

<!-- pn -->
- ← previous: [sentence 11](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg2892/33/11/)
- next →: [sentence 13](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg2892/33/13/)
- ↑ back to [Chapter I](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg2892/33/)