---
title: “Who could avoid loving him?” she murmured. — Irish Fairy Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: “Who could avoid loving him?” she murmured. Who acts: mind. 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 15

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“Who could avoid loving him?” she murmured.

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**Who acts:** mind · **What happens:** avoid, love, murmur · **To what, where:** king · **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 (mind), 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:pg2892:64:15
# text = “Who could avoid loving him?” she murmured.
1	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	4	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	Who	who	PRON	WP	PronType=Rel	4	nsubj	_	_
3	could	could	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	4	aux	_	_
4	avoid	avoid	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	10	ccomp	_	_
5	loving	love	VERB	VBG	VerbForm=Ger	4	xcomp	_	_
6	him	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	5	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	?	?	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	4	punct	_	_
9	she	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	10	nsubj	_	_
10	murmured	murmur	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	10	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **avoid** *in a quote* | could |  |  |  |  |  |  | vn avoid-52 «NP V S\_ING»: agent=Agent clause=Theme |
| 2 | **love** *in a quote* | gerund |  | king |  |  |  |  | vn admire-31.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Experiencer he=Stimulus |
| 3 | **murmur** *speech: other* | past | mind |  |  |  |  |  | vn manner\_speaking-37.3 «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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