---
title: Being a king he had authority to ask questions. — Irish Fairy Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: Being a king he had authority to ask questions. Who acts: king, authority. 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 1

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Being a king he had authority to ask questions.

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**Who acts:** king, authority · **What happens:** be, have, ask · **To what, where:** king, authority, questions

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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 (king, authority), 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:pg2892:64:1
# text = Being a king he had authority to ask questions.
1	Being	be	AUX	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	3	cop	_	_
2	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	3	det	_	_
3	king	king	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	obl	_	_
4	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	5	nsubj	_	_
5	had	have	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
6	authority	authority	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	obj	_	_
7	to	to	PART	TO	_	8	mark	_	_
8	ask	ask	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	5	xcomp	_	_
9	questions	question	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	8	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	5	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is a** | gerund |  | a king |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **have** | past | king | authority |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 3 | **ask** *speech: ask* | to-infinitive | authority *not said here* | questions |  |  |  |  | vn inquire-37.1.2 «NP V NP.recipient»: agent=Agent question=Recipient |

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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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