---
title: “Why are you killing the boy?” she demanded. — Irish Fairy Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: “Why are you killing the boy?” she demanded. Who acts: you, cow. A sentence of «Irish Fairy Tales» by James Stephens, Chapter VII, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Irish Fairy Tales, Chapter VII, sentence 23

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“Why are you killing the boy?” she demanded.

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**Who acts:** you, cow · **What happens:** kill, demand · **To what, where:** boy · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «Irish Fairy Tales» by James Stephens, Chapter VII. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (you, cow), 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:pg2892:68:23
# text = “Why are you killing the boy?” she demanded.
1	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	5	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	Why	why	ADV	WRB	PronType=Int	5	advmod	_	_
3	are	be	AUX	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=2|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	5	aux	_	_
4	you	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Person=2|PronType=Prs	5	nsubj	_	_
5	killing	kill	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	11	ccomp	_	_
6	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	7	det	_	_
7	boy	boy	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	?	?	PUNCT	.	_	5	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	5	punct	_	_
10	she	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	11	nsubj	_	_
11	demanded	demand	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	11	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **kill** *in a quote* | present · progressive | you | the boy |  |  |  |  | vn remove-10.1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent boy=Theme |
| 2 | **demand** *speech: request* | past | cow |  |  |  |  |  | vn require-103-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Theme clause=Precondition |

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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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- ← previous: [sentence 22](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg2892/68/22/)
- next →: [sentence 24](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg2892/68/24/)
- ↑ back to [Chapter VII](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg2892/68/)