---
title: “A dark stern man came often after us, and he used to speak with the… — Irish Fairy Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: “A dark stern man came often after us, and he used to speak with the deer. Who acts: dark stern man, man. A sentence of «Irish Fairy Tales» by James Stephens, Chapter VII, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Irish Fairy Tales, Chapter VII, sentence 11

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“A dark stern man came often after us, and he used to speak with the deer.

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**Who acts:** dark stern man, man · **What happens:** come, use, speak · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «Irish Fairy Tales» by James Stephens, Chapter VII. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (dark stern man, man), 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:pg2892:39:11
# text = “A dark stern man came often after us, and he used to speak with the deer.
1	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	6	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	A	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	5	det	_	_
3	dark	dark	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	5	amod	_	_
4	stern	stern	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	5	amod	_	_
5	man	man	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	nsubj	_	_
6	came	come	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
7	often	often	ADV	RB	_	6	advmod	_	_
8	after	after	ADP	IN	_	9	case	_	_
9	us	we	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Plur|Person=1|PronType=Prs	6	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	13	punct	_	_
11	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	13	cc	_	_
12	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	13	nsubj	_	_
13	used	use	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	6	conj	_	_
14	to	to	PART	TO	_	15	mark	_	_
15	speak	speak	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	13	xcomp	_	_
16	with	with	ADP	IN	_	18	case	_	_
17	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	18	det	_	_
18	deer	deer	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	15	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
19	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	6	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **come** *in a quote* | past | a dark stern man |  |  |  | after us | often *property* | vn escape-51.1-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 2 | **use** *in a quote* | past | man |  |  |  |  |  | vn use-105.1 «NP V NP S\_INF»: agent=Agent clause=Eventuality |
| 3 | **speak** *speech: other* *in a quote* | to-infinitive | man *not said here* |  |  |  |  | with the deer | vn talk-37.5 «NP V PP.co-agent»: agent=Agent with deer=Co-Agent |

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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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