---
title: “I would be contented if I could not see them at all,” his companion… — Irish Fairy Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: “I would be contented if I could not see them at all,” his companion grumbled. Who acts: companion. A sentence of «Irish Fairy Tales» by James Stephens, Chapter III, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Irish Fairy Tales, Chapter III, sentence 30

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“I would be contented if I could not see them at all,” his companion grumbled.

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**Who acts:** companion · **What happens:** content, not see, grumble · **To what, where:** companion, daughters, all · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «Irish Fairy Tales» by James Stephens, Chapter III. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (companion), 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:pg2892:58:30
# text = “I would be contented if I could not see them at all,” his companion grumbled.
1	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	5	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	5	nsubj	_	_
3	would	would	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	5	aux	_	_
4	be	be	AUX	VB	VerbForm=Inf	5	aux:pass	_	_
5	contented	content	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	18	ccomp	_	_
6	if	if	SCONJ	IN	_	10	mark	_	_
7	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	10	nsubj	_	_
8	could	could	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	10	aux	_	_
9	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	10	advmod	_	_
10	see	see	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	5	advcl	_	_
11	them	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	10	obj	_	_
12	at	at	ADP	IN	_	13	case	_	_
13	all	all	DET	DT	PronType=Tot	10	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	5	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	5	punct	_	_
16	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	17	nmod:poss	_	_
17	companion	companion	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	18	nsubj	_	_
18	grumbled	grumble	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
19	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	18	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **content** *in a quote* | would · passive |  | Fionn's companion *= companion* |  |  |  |  | vn amuse-31.1 «NP V NP»: subject=Experiencer |
| 2 | **not** **see** *a condition, not said to happen, in a quote* | could | Fionn's companion *= companion* | daughters *= daughter* |  | all |  |  | vn comprehend-87.2-1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Experiencer they=Stimulus |
| 3 | **grumble** *speech: other* | past | Fionn's companion |  |  |  |  |  | vn complain-37.8 «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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