---
title: “It is bad luck to be separated from the tails of your own coat,” th… — Irish Fairy Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: “It is bad luck to be separated from the tails of your own coat,” the Carl grumbled. Who acts: tail. A sentence of «Irish Fairy Tales» by James Stephens, Chapter V, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Irish Fairy Tales, Chapter V, sentence 30

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“It is bad luck to be separated from the tails of your own coat,” the Carl grumbled.

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**Who acts:** tail · **What happens:** be, separate, grumble · **To what, where:** bad luck · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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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 (tail), 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:pg2892:52:30
# text = “It is bad luck to be separated from the tails of your own coat,” the Carl grumbled.
1	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	5	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	It	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	5	nsubj	_	_
3	is	be	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	5	cop	_	_
4	bad	bad	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	5	amod	_	_
5	luck	luck	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	20	nsubj	_	_
6	to	to	PART	TO	_	8	mark	_	_
7	be	be	AUX	VB	VerbForm=Inf	8	aux:pass	_	_
8	separated	separate	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	5	acl	_	_
9	from	from	ADP	IN	_	11	case	_	_
10	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	11	det	_	_
11	tails	tail	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	8	obl	_	_
12	of	of	ADP	IN	_	15	case	_	_
13	your	your	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Person=2|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	15	nmod:poss	_	_
14	own	own	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	15	amod	_	_
15	coat	coat	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	11	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	5	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	5	punct	_	_
18	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	19	det	_	_
19	Carl	Carl	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	20	nsubj	_	_
20	grumbled	grumble	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
21	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	20	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is a** *in a quote* | present | tail | bad luck |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **separate** *in a quote* | to-infinitive · passive |  |  |  |  |  | from the tails of your own coat | vn separate-23.1-1-1 «NP V ADVP-Middle PP»: from tail=Co-Patient |
| 3 | **grumble** *speech: other* | past |  |  |  |  |  |  | vn complain-37.8 «NP V»: agent=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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