---
title: The belling of a stag had been music to Fionn, but when Saeve spoke… — Irish Fairy Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: The belling of a stag had been music to Fionn, but when Saeve spoke that was sound enough for him. Who acts: belling, Saeve, that. 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/pg2892/34/60/)

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# Irish Fairy Tales, Chapter II, sentence 60

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The belling of a stag had been music to Fionn, but when Saeve spoke that was sound enough for him.

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**Who acts:** belling, Saeve, that · **What happens:** be, speak · **To what, where:** music, Fionn · **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 (belling, Saeve, that), 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:pg2892:34:60
# text = The belling of a stag had been music to Fionn, but when Saeve spoke that was sound enough for him.
1	The	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	2	det	_	_
2	belling	belling	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	8	nsubj	_	_
3	of	of	ADP	IN	_	5	case	_	_
4	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	5	det	_	_
5	stag	stag	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	2	nmod	_	_
6	had	have	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	8	aux	_	_
7	been	be	AUX	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part	8	cop	_	_
8	music	music	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	0	root	_	_
9	to	to	ADP	IN	_	10	case	_	_
10	Fionn	Fionn	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	8	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	18	punct	_	_
12	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	18	cc	_	_
13	when	when	ADV	WRB	PronType=Int	15	advmod	_	_
14	Saeve	Saeve	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	15	nsubj	_	_
15	spoke	speak	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	18	advcl	_	_
16	that	that	PRON	DT	Number=Sing|PronType=Dem	18	nsubj	_	_
17	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	18	cop	_	_
18	sound	sound	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	8	conj	_	_
19	enough	enough	ADV	RB	_	18	advmod	_	_
20	for	for	ADP	IN	_	21	case	_	_
21	him	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	18	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
22	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	8	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is a** | past · perfect | the belling of a stag | music | Fionn |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **speak** *speech: other* | past | Saeve |  |  |  |  |  | vn talk-37.5 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 3 | **is** | past | that |  |  |  |  | for Saeve; enough, sound *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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