---
title: “And he is carrying a man on his back,” said the watcher. — Irish Fairy Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: “And he is carrying a man on his back,” said the watcher. Who acts: man, watcher. 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 27

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
“And he is carrying a man on his back,” said the watcher.

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**Who acts:** man, watcher · **What happens:** carry, say · **To what, where:** man, back · **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 (man, watcher), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

<!-- .note-en -->
**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:pg2892:54:27
# text = “And he is carrying a man on his back,” said the watcher.
1	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	5	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	And	and	CCONJ	CC	_	5	cc	_	_
3	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	5	nsubj	_	_
4	is	be	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	5	aux	_	_
5	carrying	carry	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	13	ccomp	_	_
6	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	7	det	_	_
7	man	man	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	obj	_	_
8	on	on	ADP	IN	_	10	case	_	_
9	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	10	nmod:poss	_	_
10	back	back	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	5	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	5	punct	_	_
13	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
14	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	15	det	_	_
15	watcher	watcher	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	13	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	13	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **carry** *in a quote* | present · progressive | man | a man |  | man's back |  |  | vn carry-11.4 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent man=Theme |
| 2 | **say** *speech: assert* | past | the watcher |  |  |  |  |  | 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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