---
title: “Did you think, Fionn, that a whale could swim on land, or what did… — Irish Fairy Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: “Did you think, Fionn, that a whale could swim on land, or what did you imagine that lump could do?” Who acts: you, whale, lump. A sentence of «Irish Fairy Tales» by James Stephens, Chapter VI, 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/pg2892/53/25/)

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# Irish Fairy Tales, Chapter VI, sentence 25

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“Did you think, Fionn, that a whale could swim on land, or what did you imagine that lump could do?”

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**Who acts:** you, whale, lump · **What happens:** think, swim, imagine, do · **To what, where:** Fionn, land · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «Irish Fairy Tales» by James Stephens, Chapter VI. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (you, whale, lump), 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:pg2892:53:25
# text = “Did you think, Fionn, that a whale could swim on land, or what did you imagine that lump could do?”
1	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	4	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	Did	do	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=2|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	4	aux	_	_
3	you	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Person=2|PronType=Prs	4	nsubj	_	_
4	think	think	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
5	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	6	punct	_	_
6	Fionn	Fionn	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	4	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	12	punct	_	_
8	that	that	SCONJ	IN	_	12	mark	_	_
9	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	10	det	_	_
10	whale	whale	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	12	nsubj	_	_
11	could	could	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	12	aux	_	_
12	swim	swim	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	4	conj	_	_
13	on	on	ADP	IN	_	14	case	_	_
14	land	land	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	12	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	20	punct	_	_
16	or	or	CCONJ	CC	_	20	cc	_	_
17	what	what	PRON	WP	PronType=Int	20	obj	_	_
18	did	do	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=2|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	20	aux	_	_
19	you	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Person=2|PronType=Prs	20	nsubj	_	_
20	imagine	imagine	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	4	conj	_	_
21	that	that	DET	DT	Number=Sing|PronType=Dem	22	det	_	_
22	lump	lump	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	24	nsubj	_	_
23	could	could	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	24	aux	_	_
24	do	do	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	20	ccomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
25	?	?	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
26	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **think** *speech: other* *in a quote* | past · do-support | you | Fionn |  |  |  |  | vn focus-87.1-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 2 | **swim** *in a quote* | could | a whale |  |  | land |  |  | vn run-51.3.2-1 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Theme on land=Trajectory |
| 3 | **imagine** *in a quote* | past · do-support | you |  |  |  |  |  | vn characterize-29.2-1-1 «NP V NP to be ADJ»: agent=Agent what=Theme clause=Attribute |
| 4 | **do** *in a quote* | could | that lump |  |  |  |  |  | vn act-114-1 «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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