---
title: But Tuan pleaded: “Let the past be content with itself, for man need… — Irish Fairy Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: But Tuan pleaded: “Let the past be content with itself, for man needs forgetfulness as well as memory.” Who acts: Tuan, past, 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 9

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But Tuan pleaded: “Let the past be content with itself, for man needs forgetfulness as well as memory.”

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**Who acts:** Tuan, past, man · **What happens:** plead, let, be, need · **To what, where:** past, forgetfulness · **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 (Tuan, past, 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:pg2892:4:9
# text = But Tuan pleaded: “Let the past be content with itself, for man needs forgetfulness as well as memory.”
1	But	but	CCONJ	CC	_	3	cc	_	_
2	Tuan	Tuan	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	3	nsubj	_	_
3	pleaded	plead	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
4	:	:	PUNCT	:	_	6	punct	_	_
5	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	6	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	Let	let	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	3	ccomp	_	_
7	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	8	det	_	_
8	past	past	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	obj	_	_
9	be	be	AUX	VB	VerbForm=Inf	10	cop	_	_
10	content	content	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	6	xcomp	_	_
11	with	with	ADP	IN	_	12	case	_	_
12	itself	itself	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs|Reflex=Yes	10	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	16	punct	_	_
14	for	for	ADP	IN	_	15	case	_	_
15	man	man	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	16	nsubj	_	_
16	needs	need	VERB	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	6	parataxis	_	_
17	forgetfulness	forgetfulness	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	16	obj	_	_
18	as	as	ADV	RB	ExtPos=CCONJ	21	cc	_	_
19	well	well	ADV	RB	Degree=Pos	18	fixed	_	_
20	as	as	ADP	IN	_	18	fixed	_	_
21	memory	memory	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	16	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
22	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	6	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
23	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	6	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **plead** *speech: request* | past | Tuan |  |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **let** *in a quote* | infinitive |  | the past |  |  |  |  | vn give-13.1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent past=Theme |
| 3 | **is** *in a quote* | infinitive | the past *not said here* |  |  |  |  | with past; content *property* | tree rules |
| 4 | **need** *in a quote* | present | man | forgetfulness |  |  |  |  | vn want-32.1-1-1 «NP V NP ADV»: agent=Pivot forgetfulness=Theme |

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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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