---
title: “To keep a cat from cream or a woman from her gear is not work for a… — Irish Fairy Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: “To keep a cat from cream or a woman from her gear is not work for a king,” said the monarch severely. Who acts: gear, monarch. A sentence of «Irish Fairy Tales» by James Stephens, Chapter II, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Irish Fairy Tales, Chapter II, sentence 25

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“To keep a cat from cream or a woman from her gear is not work for a king,” said the monarch severely.

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**Who acts:** gear, monarch · **What happens:** keep, not be, say · **To what, where:** cat, cream · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «Irish Fairy Tales» by James Stephens, Chapter II. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (gear, monarch), 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:pg2892:41:25
# text = “To keep a cat from cream or a woman from her gear is not work for a king,” said the monarch severely.
1	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	3	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	To	to	PART	TO	_	3	mark	_	_
3	keep	keep	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	22	ccomp	_	_
4	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	5	det	_	_
5	cat	cat	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	obj	_	_
6	from	from	ADP	IN	_	7	case	_	_
7	cream	cream	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	obl	_	_
8	or	or	CCONJ	CC	_	10	cc	_	_
9	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	10	det	_	_
10	woman	woman	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	conj	_	_
11	from	from	SCONJ	IN	_	16	mark	_	_
12	her	her	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	13	nmod:poss	_	_
13	gear	gear	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	16	nsubj	_	_
14	is	be	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	16	cop	_	_
15	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	16	advmod	_	_
16	work	work	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	3	advcl	_	_
17	for	for	ADP	IN	_	19	case	_	_
18	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	19	det	_	_
19	king	king	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	16	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
20	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	3	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
21	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	3	punct	_	_
22	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
23	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	24	det	_	_
24	monarch	monarch	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	22	obj	_	_
25	severely	severely	ADV	RB	_	22	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
26	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	22	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **keep** *in a quote* | to-infinitive |  |  | a cat | cream or a woman |  |  | vn forbid-64.4 «NP V NP PP.theme»: agent=Causer cat=Beneficiary from cream=Eventuality |
| 2 | **not** **is** *in a quote* | present | journey's gear |  |  |  |  | for a king; work *property* | tree rules |
| 3 | **say** *speech: assert* | past | the monarch |  |  |  |  | severely *property* | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent clause=Topic |

<!-- .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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