---
title: “If those sheep learn how to climb, we are undone surely,” said the… — Irish Fairy Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: “If those sheep learn how to climb, we are undone surely,” said the man below. Who acts: sheep, man. A sentence of «Irish Fairy Tales» by James Stephens, Chapter VI, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Irish Fairy Tales, Chapter VI, sentence 18

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“If those sheep learn how to climb, we are undone surely,” said the man below.

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**Who acts:** sheep, man · **What happens:** learn, climb, undo, say · **To what, where:** we · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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

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**Checked tree.** This sentence is in the tales treebank of Mova corpus 0.3 (`gutenberg:pg2892:2271`): parsed by Mova, then checked and patched by a teacher model under UD validation gates — Mova annot: Rust (en) → Claude Opus (medium) patches; gates UD 2.18.

## The tree {#tree}

```conllu
# sent_id = book:pg2892:77:18
# text = “If those sheep learn how to climb, we are undone surely,” said the man below.
1	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	16	punct	_	_
2	If	if	SCONJ	IN	_	5	mark	_	_
3	those	that	DET	DT	Number=Plur|PronType=Dem	4	det	_	_
4	sheep	sheep	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	5	nsubj	_	_
5	learn	learn	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	12	advcl	_	_
6	how	how	ADV	WRB	PronType=Int	8	advmod	_	_
7	to	to	PART	TO	_	8	mark	_	_
8	climb	climb	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	5	ccomp	_	_
9	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	5	punct	_	_
10	we	we	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=1|PronType=Prs	12	nsubj:pass	_	_
11	are	be	AUX	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=1|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	12	aux:pass	_	_
12	undone	undo	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	16	ccomp	_	_
13	surely	surely	ADV	RB	_	12	advmod	_	_
14	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	12	punct	_	_
15	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	12	punct	_	_
16	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
17	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	18	det	_	_
18	man	man	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	16	nsubj	_	_
19	below	below	ADV	RB	_	18	advmod	_	_
20	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	16	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **learn** *a condition, not said to happen, in a quote* | present | that sheep |  |  |  |  |  | vn learn-14-2-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent clause=Topic |
| 2 | **climb** *in a quote* | to-infinitive |  |  |  |  |  |  | vn run-51.3.2 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 3 | **undo** *in a quote* | present · passive |  | we |  |  |  | surely *property* | vn destroy-44 «NP V NP»: subject=Patient |
| 4 | **say** *speech: assert* | past | the man |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «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:** the tales treebank of Mova corpus 0.3, Apache-2.0 OR MIT. **Frames:** Mova's frames reader (`prag`), the chapter read in order.

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