---
title: “Boys are good enough with slings,” Confro continued, “but except fo… — Irish Fairy Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: “Boys are good enough with slings,” Confro continued, “but except for eating their fill and running away from a fight, you can’t count on boys.” Who acts: Boys, Confro, you. 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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# Irish Fairy Tales, Chapter I, sentence 21

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“Boys are good enough with slings,” Confro continued, “but except for eating their fill and running away from a fight, you can’t count on boys.”

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**Who acts:** Boys, Confro, you · **What happens:** be, continue, eat, run away, not count · **To what, where:** fill, fight · **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 (Boys, Confro, you), 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:pg2892:45:21
# text = “Boys are good enough with slings,” Confro continued, “but except for eating their fill and running away from a fight, you can’t count on boys.”
1	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	4	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	Boys	boy	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	4	nsubj	_	_
3	are	be	AUX	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	4	cop	_	_
4	good	good	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	0	root	_	_
5	enough	enough	ADV	RB	_	4	advmod	_	_
6	with	with	ADP	IN	_	7	case	_	_
7	slings	sling	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	4	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	4	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	4	punct	_	_
10	Confro	Confro	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	11	nsubj	_	_
11	continued	continue	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	4	parataxis	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	17	punct	_	_
13	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	17	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	17	cc	_	_
15	except	except	ADP	IN	_	17	mark	_	_
16	for	for	SCONJ	IN	_	17	mark	_	_
17	eating	eat	VERB	VBG	VerbForm=Ger	11	ccomp	_	_
18	their	their	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Plur|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	19	nmod:poss	_	_
19	fill	fill	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	17	obj	_	_
20	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	21	cc	_	_
21	running	run	VERB	VBG	VerbForm=Ger	17	conj	_	_
22	away	away	ADV	RB	_	21	advmod	_	_
23	from	from	ADP	IN	_	25	case	_	_
24	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	25	det	_	_
25	fight	fight	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	21	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
26	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	30	punct	_	_
27	you	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Person=2|PronType=Prs	30	nsubj	_	_
28	ca	can	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	30	aux	_	SpaceAfter=No
29	n’t	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	30	advmod	_	_
30	count	count	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	4	parataxis	_	_
31	on	on	ADP	IN	_	32	case	_	_
32	boys	boy	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	30	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
33	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
34	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is** *in a quote* | present | Boys |  |  |  |  | with slings; enough, good *property* | tree rules |
| 2 | **continue** | past | Confro |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7 «NP V S-Quote»: agent=Agent clause=Topic |
| 3 | **eat** *in a quote* | gerund | Confro *not said here* | Boys's fill |  |  |  |  | vn eat-39.1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent fill=Patient |
| 4 | **run away** *in a quote* | gerund | Confro *not said here* |  |  | a fight |  | away *property* | vn run-51.3.2-2-1 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Theme from fight=Trajectory |
| 5 | **not** **count** *in a quote* | can | you |  |  |  |  | on boys | vn rely-70 «NP V PP.theme S\_ING»: agent=Agent on boy=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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