---
title: “I cannot climb a tree,” she sobbed, “I shall be eaten by the wolves.” — Irish Fairy Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: “I cannot climb a tree,” she sobbed, “I shall be eaten by the wolves.” Who acts: Wolves, mistress. 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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[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg2892/41/53/)

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# Irish Fairy Tales, Chapter II, sentence 53

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“I cannot climb a tree,” she sobbed, “I shall be eaten by the wolves.”

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**Who acts:** Wolves, mistress · **What happens:** not climb, sob, eat · **To what, where:** tree, Wolves · **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 (Wolves, mistress), 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:pg2892:41:53
# text = “I cannot climb a tree,” she sobbed, “I shall be eaten by the wolves.”
1	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	5	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	5	nsubj	_	_
3	can	can	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	5	aux	_	SpaceAfter=No
4	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	5	advmod	_	_
5	climb	climb	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	11	ccomp	_	_
6	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	7	det	_	_
7	tree	tree	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	5	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	5	punct	_	_
10	she	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	11	nsubj	_	_
11	sobbed	sob	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	17	punct	_	_
13	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	17	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	17	nsubj	_	_
15	shall	shall	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	17	aux	_	_
16	be	be	AUX	VB	VerbForm=Inf	17	aux:pass	_	_
17	eaten	eat	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	11	parataxis	_	_
18	by	by	ADP	IN	_	20	case	_	_
19	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	20	det	_	_
20	wolves	wolf	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	17	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
21	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	11	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
22	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	11	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **not** **climb** *in a quote* | can | Wolves *= wolf* | a tree |  |  |  |  | vn run-51.3.2 «PP.location V NP»: agent=Initial\_Location tree=Theme |
| 2 | **sob** | past | mistress |  |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 3 | **eat** *in a quote* | shall · passive | the wolves | Wolves *= wolf* |  |  |  |  | vn eat-39.1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent subject=Patient |

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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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- ← previous: [sentence 52](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg2892/41/52/)
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- ↑ back to [Chapter II](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg2892/41/)