---
title: “Come on, my love,” said Fionn, “for I must find out if these whiske… — Irish Fairy Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: “Come on, my love,” said Fionn, “for I must find out if these whiskers are true.” Who acts: Fionn, whiskers, my. 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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[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg2892/58/38/)

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# Irish Fairy Tales, Chapter III, sentence 38

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“Come on, my love,” said Fionn, “for I must find out if these whiskers are true.”

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**Who acts:** Fionn, whiskers, my · **What happens:** come on, say, find out, be, love · **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 (Fionn, whiskers, my), 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:pg2892:58:38
# text = “Come on, my love,” said Fionn, “for I must find out if these whiskers are true.”
1	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	2	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	Come	come	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	9	ccomp	_	_
3	on	on	ADV	RB	_	2	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
4	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	6	punct	_	_
5	my	my	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Sing|Person=1|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	6	nmod:poss	_	_
6	love	love	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	2	vocative	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	2	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	2	punct	_	_
9	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
10	Fionn	Fionn	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	9	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	16	punct	_	_
12	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	16	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	for	for	SCONJ	IN	_	16	mark	_	_
14	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	16	nsubj	_	_
15	must	must	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	16	aux	_	_
16	find	find	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	9	ccomp	_	_
17	out	out	ADP	RP	_	16	compound:prt	_	_
18	if	if	SCONJ	IN	_	22	mark	_	_
19	these	this	DET	DT	Number=Plur|PronType=Dem	20	det	_	_
20	whiskers	whisker	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	22	nsubj	_	_
21	are	be	AUX	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	22	cop	_	_
22	true	true	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	16	xcomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
23	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	16	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
24	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	16	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **come on** *in a quote* | infinitive |  |  |  |  |  | my love *vocative* | vn escape-51.1-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 2 | **say** *speech: assert* | past | Fionn |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent clause=Topic |
| 3 | **find out** *in a quote* | must | Fionn |  |  |  |  |  | vn learn-14-2-1 «NP V PP.topic»: agent=Agent |
| 4 | **is** *a condition, not said to happen, in a quote* | present | this whiskers |  |  |  |  | true *property* | tree rules |
| 5 | **love** *in a quote* |  | my |  |  |  |  |  | nom love «feeling transitive»: poss=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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