---
title: “Is this true, my pulse?” he murmured. — Irish Fairy Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: “Is this true, my pulse?” he murmured. Who acts: this, king, my. A sentence of «Irish Fairy Tales» by James Stephens, Chapter V, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

<!-- md -->
[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg2892/44/53/)

<!-- crumbs -->
[home](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) / [corpora](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/) / [tales](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/) / [Irish Fairy Tales](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg2892/) / [Chapter V](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg2892/44/) / 53

# Irish Fairy Tales, Chapter V, sentence 53

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
“Is this true, my pulse?” he murmured.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** this, king, my · **What happens:** be, murmur, pulse · **To what, where:** pulse · **Speech:** someone speaks here

<!-- .vabout -->
This is a sentence of «Irish Fairy Tales» by James Stephens, Chapter V. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (this, king, my), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

<!-- .note-en -->
**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:pg2892:44:53
# text = “Is this true, my pulse?” he murmured.
1	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	4	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	Is	be	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	4	cop	_	_
3	this	this	PRON	DT	Number=Sing|PronType=Dem	4	nsubj	_	_
4	true	true	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	0	root	_	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	pulse	pulse	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	?	?	PUNCT	.	_	7	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	7	punct	_	_
10	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	11	nsubj	_	_
11	murmured	murmur	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	7	acl:relcl	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is** *in a quote* | present | this |  |  |  |  | true *property* | tree rules |
| 2 | **murmur** *speech: other* | past | king | my pulse *not said here* |  |  |  |  | vn manner\_speaking-37.3 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent pulse=Topic |
| 3 | **pulse** *in a quote* |  | my |  |  |  |  |  | nom pulse «event transitive»: poss=agent |

<!-- .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.

<!-- div src -->

**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.

<!-- /div -->

<!-- pn -->
- ← previous: [sentence 52](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg2892/44/52/)
- next →: [sentence 54](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg2892/44/54/)
- ↑ back to [Chapter V](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg2892/44/)