---
title: “Cael, my pulse,” said the Carl, “we had better build a house or a h… — Irish Fairy Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: “Cael, my pulse,” said the Carl, “we had better build a house or a hut to pass the night in.” Who acts: Cael, Carl, my. A sentence of «Irish Fairy Tales» by James Stephens, Chapter IV, 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/pg2892/51/1/)

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# Irish Fairy Tales, Chapter IV, sentence 1

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“Cael, my pulse,” said the Carl, “we had better build a house or a hut to pass the night in.”

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**Who acts:** Cael, Carl, my · **What happens:** say, build, pass, pulse · **To what, where:** house · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «Irish Fairy Tales» by James Stephens, Chapter IV. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Cael, Carl, my), 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:pg2892:51:1
# text = “Cael, my pulse,” said the Carl, “we had better build a house or a hut to pass the night in.”
1	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	2	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	Cael	Cael	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	8	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
3	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	5	punct	_	_
4	my	my	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Sing|Person=1|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	5	nmod:poss	_	_
5	pulse	pulse	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	2	appos	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	5	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	2	punct	_	_
8	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
9	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	10	det	_	_
10	Carl	Carl	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	16	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	14	punct	_	_
12	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	14	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	we	we	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=1|PronType=Prs	14	nsubj	_	_
14	had	have	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	16	aux	_	_
15	better	good	ADJ	JJR	Degree=Cmp	14	xcomp	_	_
16	build	build	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	8	ccomp	_	_
17	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	18	det	_	_
18	house	house	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	16	obj	_	_
19	or	or	CCONJ	CC	_	21	cc	_	_
20	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	21	det	_	_
21	hut	hut	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	18	conj	_	_
22	to	to	PART	TO	_	23	mark	_	_
23	pass	pass	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	16	advcl	_	_
24	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	25	det	_	_
25	night	night	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	23	obj	_	_
26	in	in	ADV	RB	_	23	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
27	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	8	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
28	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	8	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **say** *speech: assert* | past | Cael |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent clause=Topic |
| 2 | **build** *in a quote* | past | the Carl | a house or a hut |  |  |  |  | vn build-26.1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent house=Product |
| 3 | **pass** *in a quote* | to-infinitive | the Carl *not said here* |  |  |  | night |  | vn occur-48.3-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 4 | **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.

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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: [Chapter III, 18](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg2892/50/18/)
- next →: [sentence 2](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg2892/51/2/)
- ↑ back to [Chapter IV](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg2892/51/)