---
title: “I wonder what that means?” the king exclaimed thoughtfully. — Irish Fairy Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: “I wonder what that means?” the king exclaimed thoughtfully. Who acts: I, that, king. A sentence of «Irish Fairy Tales» by James Stephens, Chapter I, 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/pg2892/40/13/)

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# Irish Fairy Tales, Chapter I, sentence 13

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“I wonder what that means?” the king exclaimed thoughtfully.

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**Who acts:** I, that, king · **What happens:** wonder, mean, exclaim · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «Irish Fairy Tales» by James Stephens, Chapter I. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (I, that, king), 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:pg2892:40:13
# text = “I wonder what that means?” the king exclaimed thoughtfully.
1	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	3	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	3	nsubj	_	_
3	wonder	wonder	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
4	what	what	PRON	WP	PronType=Int	6	obj	_	_
5	that	that	PRON	DT	Number=Sing|PronType=Dem	6	nsubj	_	_
6	means	mean	VERB	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	3	ccomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	?	?	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	3	punct	_	_
9	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	10	det	_	_
10	king	king	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	11	nsubj	_	_
11	exclaimed	exclaim	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	3	ccomp	_	_
12	thoughtfully	thoughtfully	ADV	RB	_	11	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **wonder** *speech: ask* *in a quote* | present | I |  |  |  |  |  | vn care-88.1-1 «NP V what S»: agent=Experiencer clause=Stimulus |
| 2 | **mean** *in a quote* | present | that |  |  |  |  |  | vn intend-61.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent what=Topic |
| 3 | **exclaim** *speech: express* | past | the king |  |  |  |  | thoughtfully *property* | vn say-37.7-1 «NP V how S»: agent=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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