---
title: “By my hand,” he answered, “you are sweeter and lovelier than any be… — Irish Fairy Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: “By my hand,” he answered, “you are sweeter and lovelier than any being under the sun, but--” Who acts: Art, you. A sentence of «Irish Fairy Tales» by James Stephens, Chapter IX, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

<!-- md -->
[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg2892/70/20/)

<!-- crumbs -->
[home](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) / [corpora](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/) / [tales](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/) / [Irish Fairy Tales](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg2892/) / [Chapter IX](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg2892/70/) / 20

# Irish Fairy Tales, Chapter IX, sentence 20

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
“By my hand,” he answered, “you are sweeter and lovelier than any being under the sun, but--”

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** Art, you · **What happens:** answer, be · **Speech:** someone speaks here

<!-- .vabout -->
This is a sentence of «Irish Fairy Tales» by James Stephens, Chapter IX. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Art, you), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

<!-- .note-en -->
**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:pg2892:70:20
# text = “By my hand,” he answered, “you are sweeter and lovelier than any being under the sun, but--”
1	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	8	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	By	by	ADP	IN	_	4	case	_	_
3	my	my	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Sing|Person=1|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	4	nmod:poss	_	_
4	hand	hand	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	8	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
5	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	4	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	4	punct	_	_
7	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	8	nsubj	_	_
8	answered	answer	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	13	punct	_	_
10	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	13	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	you	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Person=2|PronType=Prs	13	nsubj	_	_
12	are	be	AUX	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=2|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	13	cop	_	_
13	sweeter	sweet	ADJ	JJR	Degree=Cmp	8	conj	_	_
14	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	15	cc	_	_
15	lovelier	lovely	ADJ	JJR	Degree=Cmp	13	conj	_	_
16	than	than	ADP	IN	_	21	case	_	_
17	any	any	DET	DT	PronType=Ind	21	det	_	_
18	being	be	AUX	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	21	cop	_	_
19	under	under	ADP	IN	_	21	case	_	_
20	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	21	det	_	_
21	sun	sun	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	13	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
22	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	23	punct	_	_
23	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	8	ccomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
24	--	--	PUNCT	,	_	23	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
25	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	8	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **answer** *speech: assert* | past | Art |  |  |  |  | by my hand | vn reciprocate-112-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 2 | **is** *in a quote* | present | you |  |  |  |  | sweet *property* | tree rules |
| 3 | **be** *in a quote* |  | you *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 4 | **is** *in a quote* | gerund |  |  |  |  |  | than any sun | tree rules |

<!-- .note -->
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.

<!-- div src -->

**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.

<!-- /div -->

<!-- pn -->
- ← previous: [sentence 19](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg2892/70/19/)
- next →: [sentence 21](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg2892/70/21/)
- ↑ back to [Chapter IX](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg2892/70/)