---
title: “What shall I do?” she inquired, “am I to wed you or your son?” — Irish Fairy Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: “What shall I do?” she inquired, “am I to wed you or your son?” Who acts: 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 22

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“What shall I do?” she inquired, “am I to wed you or your son?”

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**Who acts:** wife · **What happens:** do, inquire, wed · **To what, where:** you · **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 (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:pg2892:64:22
# text = “What shall I do?” she inquired, “am I to wed you or your son?”
1	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	5	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	What	what	PRON	WP	PronType=Int	5	obj	_	_
3	shall	shall	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	5	aux	_	_
4	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	5	nsubj	_	_
5	do	do	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	9	parataxis	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	?	?	PUNCT	.	_	5	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	5	punct	_	_
8	she	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	9	nsubj	_	_
9	inquired	inquire	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	15	punct	_	_
11	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	15	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	am	be	AUX	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	15	aux	_	_
13	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	15	nsubj	_	_
14	to	to	PART	TO	_	15	mark	_	_
15	wed	wed	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	9	ccomp	_	_
16	you	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Person=2|PronType=Prs	15	obj	_	_
17	or	or	CCONJ	CC	_	19	cc	_	_
18	your	your	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Person=2|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	19	nmod:poss	_	_
19	son	son	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	16	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
20	?	?	PUNCT	.	_	15	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
21	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	15	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **do** *in a quote* | shall | wife |  |  |  |  |  | vn act-114-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent what=Eventuality |
| 2 | **inquire** *speech: other* | past | wife |  |  |  |  |  | vn inquire-37.1.2 «NP V how S»: agent=Agent clause=Topic |
| 3 | **wed** *in a quote* | present | wife | you |  |  |  |  | vn amalgamate-22.2-3-1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent you=Patient |

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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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