---
title: “I did not know you lacked a wife,” said Becuma, but indeed she did. — Irish Fairy Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: “I did not know you lacked a wife,” said Becuma, but indeed she did. Who acts: Becuma, you, wife. 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 20

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“I did not know you lacked a wife,” said Becuma, but indeed she did.

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**Who acts:** Becuma, you, wife · **What happens:** not know, lack, say, do · **To what, where:** wife · **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 (Becuma, you, wife), 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:pg2892:64:20
# text = “I did not know you lacked a wife,” said Becuma, but indeed she did.
1	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	5	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	5	nsubj	_	_
3	did	do	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	5	aux	_	_
4	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	5	advmod	_	_
5	know	know	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	12	ccomp	_	_
6	you	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Person=2|PronType=Prs	7	nsubj	_	_
7	lacked	lack	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=2|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	5	ccomp	_	_
8	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	9	det	_	_
9	wife	wife	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	5	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	5	punct	_	_
12	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
13	Becuma	Becuma	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	12	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	18	punct	_	_
15	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	18	cc	_	_
16	indeed	indeed	ADV	RB	_	18	advmod	_	_
17	she	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	18	nsubj	_	_
18	did	do	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	12	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
19	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	12	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **not** **know** *in a quote* | past · do-support | Becuma |  |  |  |  |  | vn comprehend-87.2-1-1-1 «NP V S\_ING»: agent=Experiencer clause=Stimulus |
| 2 | **lack** *in a quote* | past | you | a wife |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 3 | **say** *speech: assert* | past | Becuma |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent clause=Topic |
| 4 | **do** | past | wife |  |  |  |  | indeed *property* | vn act-114-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent |

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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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