---
title: And, without thinking it, he thought that had the positions been cha… — Irish Fairy Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: And, without thinking it, he thought that had the positions been changed he would have known that nothing could retain the one that was absent. Who acts: Chief, nothing, one. A sentence of «Irish Fairy Tales» by James Stephens, Chapter III, 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/pg2892/35/38/)

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# Irish Fairy Tales, Chapter III, sentence 38

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And, without thinking it, he thought that had the positions been changed he would have known that nothing could retain the one that was absent.

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**Who acts:** Chief, nothing, one · **What happens:** think, change, know, retain, be · **To what, where:** feast, that, Chief, one · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «Irish Fairy Tales» by James Stephens, Chapter III. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Chief, nothing, one), 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:pg2892:35:38
# text = And, without thinking it, he thought that had the positions been changed he would have known that nothing could retain the one that was absent.
1	And	and	CCONJ	CC	_	8	cc	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	1	punct	_	_
3	without	without	SCONJ	IN	_	4	mark	_	_
4	thinking	think	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	8	advcl	_	_
5	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	4	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	4	punct	_	_
7	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	8	nsubj	_	_
8	thought	think	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
9	that	that	PRON	DT	Number=Sing|PronType=Dem	14	nsubj	_	_
10	had	have	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	14	aux	_	_
11	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	12	det	_	_
12	positions	position	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	14	nsubj:pass	_	_
13	been	be	AUX	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part	14	aux:pass	_	_
14	changed	change	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	8	ccomp	_	_
15	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	18	nsubj:pass	_	_
16	would	would	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	18	aux	_	_
17	have	have	AUX	VB	VerbForm=Inf	18	aux	_	_
18	known	know	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	14	parataxis	_	_
19	that	that	SCONJ	IN	_	22	mark	_	_
20	nothing	nothing	PRON	NN	Number=Sing|PronType=Neg	22	nsubj	_	_
21	could	could	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	22	aux	_	_
22	retain	retain	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	18	xcomp	_	_
23	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	24	det	_	_
24	one	one	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	22	obj	_	_
25	that	that	PRON	WDT	PronType=Rel	27	nsubj	_	_
26	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	27	cop	_	_
27	absent	absent	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	24	acl:relcl	_	SpaceAfter=No
28	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	8	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **think** *speech: other* | gerund | Chief *not said here* | feast |  |  |  |  | vn wish-62 «NP V NP»: agent=Pivot it=Theme |
| 2 | **think** *speech: other* | past | Chief |  |  |  |  |  | vn consider-29.9-2 «NP V how S»: agent=Agent clause=Theme |
| 3 | **change** | past · perfect · passive |  | that |  |  |  |  | vn dress-41.1.1-1-1 «NP V NP»: subject=Patient |
| 4 | **know** | would · perfect · passive |  | Chief |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 5 | **retain** | could | nothing | the one |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 6 | **is** | past | the one |  |  |  |  | absent *property* | tree rules |

<!-- .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.

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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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