---
title: It did not take the dog long to do what he had been ordered. — Irish Fairy Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: It did not take the dog long to do what he had been ordered. Who acts: It. A sentence of «Irish Fairy Tales» by James Stephens, Chapter VII. “It is not nice of you to laugh at us,” said Fiachna Finn, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Irish Fairy Tales, Chapter VII. “It is not nice of you to laugh at us,” said Fiachna Finn, sentence 32

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It did not take the dog long to do what he had been ordered.

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**Who acts:** It · **What happens:** not take, do, order · **To what, where:** dog, Mananna’n

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This is a sentence of «Irish Fairy Tales» by James Stephens, Chapter VII. “It is not nice of you to laugh at us,” said Fiachna Finn. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (It), 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:pg2892:78:32
# text = It did not take the dog long to do what he had been ordered.
1	It	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	4	nsubj	_	_
2	did	do	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	4	aux	_	_
3	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	4	advmod	_	_
4	take	take	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	0	root	_	_
5	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	6	det	_	_
6	dog	dog	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	obj	_	_
7	long	long	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	4	advmod	_	_
8	to	to	PART	TO	_	9	mark	_	_
9	do	do	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	7	xcomp	_	_
10	what	what	PRON	WP	PronType=Int	9	obj	_	_
11	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	14	nsubj	_	_
12	had	have	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	14	aux	_	_
13	been	be	AUX	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part	14	aux:pass	_	_
14	ordered	order	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	10	acl:relcl	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **not** **take** | past · do-support | It |  | the dog |  |  |  | vn bring-11.3 «NP V NP ADVP»: agent=Instrument dog=Destination |
| 2 | **do** | to-infinitive |  |  |  |  |  |  | vn act-114-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent what=Eventuality |
| 3 | **order** | past · perfect · passive |  | Mananna’n *= mananna'n* |  |  |  |  | vn get-13.5.1 «NP V NP»: subject=Theme |

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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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