---
title: “I used to eat fruits and roots in the summer,” the boy continued, “… — Irish Fairy Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: “I used to eat fruits and roots in the summer,” the boy continued, “but in the winter food was left for me in a cave.” Who acts: Fionn, boy. 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 6

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“I used to eat fruits and roots in the summer,” the boy continued, “but in the winter food was left for me in a cave.”

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**Who acts:** Fionn, boy · **What happens:** use, eat, continue, leave · **To what, where:** fruits, winter food, cave

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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 (Fionn, boy), 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:pg2892:39:6
# text = “I used to eat fruits and roots in the summer,” the boy continued, “but in the winter food was left for me in a cave.”
1	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	3	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	3	nsubj	_	_
3	used	use	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	16	advcl	_	_
4	to	to	PART	TO	_	5	mark	_	_
5	eat	eat	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	3	xcomp	_	_
6	fruits	fruit	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	5	obj	_	_
7	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	8	cc	_	_
8	roots	root	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	6	conj	_	_
9	in	in	ADP	IN	_	11	case	_	_
10	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	11	det	_	_
11	summer	summer	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	3	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	3	punct	_	_
14	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	15	det	_	_
15	boy	boy	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	16	nsubj	_	_
16	continued	continue	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	25	punct	_	_
18	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	25	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
19	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	25	cc	_	_
20	in	in	ADP	IN	_	23	case	_	_
21	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	23	det	_	_
22	winter	winter	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	23	compound	_	_
23	food	food	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	25	nsubj:pass	_	_
24	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	25	aux:pass	_	_
25	left	leave	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	16	conj	_	_
26	for	for	ADP	IN	_	27	case	_	_
27	me	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	25	obl	_	_
28	in	in	ADP	IN	_	30	case	_	_
29	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	30	det	_	_
30	cave	cave	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	25	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
31	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	16	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
32	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	16	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **use** *in a quote* | past | Fionn |  |  |  |  |  | vn use-105.1 «NP V NP S\_INF»: agent=Agent clause=Eventuality |
| 2 | **eat** *in a quote* | to-infinitive | Fionn *not said here* | fruits and roots |  |  | summer |  | vn eat-39.1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent fruit=Patient |
| 3 | **continue** | past | the boy |  |  |  |  |  | vn escape-51.1-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 4 | **leave** *in a quote* | past · passive |  | the winter food |  | a cave |  | for Fionn | vn keep-15.2 «NP V NP PP.location»: subject=Theme in cave=Location |

<!-- .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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