---
title: “What can you see?” said Fionn. — Irish Fairy Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: “What can you see?” said Fionn. Who acts: you, Fionn. A sentence of «Irish Fairy Tales» by James Stephens, Chapter VII. “What do you see?” Fionn demanded of the watcher, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Irish Fairy Tales, Chapter VII. “What do you see?” Fionn demanded of the watcher, sentence 12

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
“What can you see?” said Fionn.

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**Who acts:** you, Fionn · **What happens:** see, say · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «Irish Fairy Tales» by James Stephens, Chapter VII. “What do you see?” Fionn demanded of the watcher. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (you, 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:pg2892:54:12
# text = “What can you see?” said Fionn.
1	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	5	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	What	what	PRON	WP	PronType=Int	5	obj	_	_
3	can	can	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	5	aux	_	_
4	you	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Person=2|PronType=Prs	5	nsubj	_	_
5	see	see	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	8	ccomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	?	?	PUNCT	.	_	5	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	5	punct	_	_
8	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
9	Fionn	Fionn	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	8	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	8	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **see** *in a quote* | can | you |  |  |  |  |  | vn comprehend-87.2-1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Experiencer what=Stimulus |
| 2 | **say** *speech: ask* | past | Fionn |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent clause=Topic |

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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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