---
title: “Nothing is wanting,” he replied, “but a well-shaped poem.” — Irish Fairy Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: “Nothing is wanting,” he replied, “but a well-shaped poem.” Who acts: Nothing, Fionn. 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/pg2892/45/35/)

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# Irish Fairy Tales, Chapter I, sentence 35

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“Nothing is wanting,” he replied, “but a well-shaped poem.”

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**Who acts:** Nothing, Fionn · **What happens:** want, reply, shape · **To what, where:** shaped poem · **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 (Nothing, Fionn), 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:pg2892:45:35
# text = “Nothing is wanting,” he replied, “but a well-shaped poem.”
1	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	4	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	Nothing	nothing	PRON	NN	Number=Sing|PronType=Neg	4	nsubj	_	_
3	is	be	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	4	aux	_	_
4	wanting	want	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	8	ccomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
5	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	4	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	4	punct	_	_
7	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	8	nsubj	_	_
8	replied	reply	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	8	punct	_	_
10	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	16	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	16	cc	_	_
12	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	16	det	_	_
13	well	well	ADV	RB	Degree=Pos	15	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	13	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	shaped	shape	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	16	amod	_	_
16	poem	poem	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	8	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	16	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
18	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	16	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **want** *in a quote* | present · progressive | Nothing |  |  |  |  |  | vn want-32.1-1-1 «NP V NP S\_INF»: agent=Pivot |
| 2 | **reply** *speech: assert* | past | Fionn | a shaped poem |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1 «NP V S-Quote»: agent=Agent clause=Topic |
| 3 | **shape** *in a quote* | participle |  |  |  |  |  | well *property* | vn build-26.1-1 «NP.asset V NP»: agent=Asset |

<!-- .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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