---
title: Tell me your past, my beloved, for a man is his past, and is to be k… — Irish Fairy Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: Tell me your past, my beloved, for a man is his past, and is to be known by it.” Who acts: you, man. 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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# Irish Fairy Tales, Chapter III, sentence 8

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Tell me your past, my beloved, for a man is his past, and is to be known by it.”

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**Who acts:** you, man · **What happens:** tell, be, know · **To what, where:** past, me · **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 (you, 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:pg2892:4:8
# text = Tell me your past, my beloved, for a man is his past, and is to be known by it.”
1	Tell	tell	VERB	VB	Mood=Imp|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
2	me	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	1	iobj	_	_
3	your	your	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Person=2|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	4	nmod:poss	_	_
4	past	past	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	1	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
5	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	7	punct	_	_
6	my	my	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Sing|Person=1|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	7	nmod:poss	_	_
7	beloved	beloved	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	1	parataxis	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	14	punct	_	_
9	for	for	SCONJ	IN	_	14	mark	_	_
10	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	11	det	_	_
11	man	man	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	14	nsubj	_	_
12	is	be	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	14	cop	_	_
13	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	14	nmod:poss	_	_
14	past	past	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	1	parataxis	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	20	punct	_	_
16	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	20	cc	_	_
17	is	be	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	20	aux:pass	_	_
18	to	to	PART	TO	_	20	mark	_	_
19	be	be	AUX	VB	VerbForm=Inf	20	aux:pass	_	_
20	known	know	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	14	parataxis	_	_
21	by	by	ADP	IN	_	22	case	_	_
22	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	20	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
23	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	1	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
24	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	1	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **tell** *speech: assert* | imperative | you *not said here* | your past | me |  |  |  | vn transfer\_mesg-37.1.1-1-1 «NP V NP-Dative NP»: agent=Agent i=Recipient past=Topic |
| 2 | **is** | present | a man |  |  |  |  | past *property* | tree rules |
| 3 | **know** | present · passive |  |  |  |  |  | by past | vn comprehend-87.2-1-1-1 «NP V» |

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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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