---
title: “I never saw anything I would rather have than these cows,” said Mon… — Irish Fairy Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: “I never saw anything I would rather have than these cows,” said Mongan. Who acts: Mongan. A sentence of «Irish Fairy Tales» by James Stephens, Chapter X, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg2892/81/23/)

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# Irish Fairy Tales, Chapter X, sentence 23

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“I never saw anything I would rather have than these cows,” said Mongan.

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**Who acts:** Mongan · **What happens:** not see, have, say · **To what, where:** anything · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «Irish Fairy Tales» by James Stephens, Chapter X. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Mongan), 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:pg2892:81:23
# text = “I never saw anything I would rather have than these cows,” said Mongan.
1	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	4	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	4	nsubj	_	_
3	never	never	ADV	RB	PronType=Neg	4	advmod	_	_
4	saw	see	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	15	ccomp	_	_
5	anything	anything	PRON	NN	Number=Sing|PronType=Ind	4	obj	_	_
6	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	9	nsubj	_	_
7	would	would	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	9	aux	_	_
8	rather	rather	ADV	RB	_	9	advmod	_	_
9	have	have	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	5	acl:relcl	_	_
10	than	than	ADP	IN	_	12	case	_	_
11	these	this	DET	DT	Number=Plur|PronType=Dem	12	det	_	_
12	cows	cow	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	9	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	4	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	4	punct	_	_
15	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
16	Mongan	Mongan	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	15	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	15	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **not** **see** *in a quote* | past | Mongan | anything |  |  |  |  | vn comprehend-87.2-1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Experiencer anything=Stimulus |
| 2 | **have** *in a quote* | would | Mongan |  |  |  |  | than this cows | vn birth-28.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent |
| 3 | **say** *speech: assert* | past | Mongan |  |  |  |  |  | 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:** 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/pg2892/81/22/)
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- ↑ back to [Chapter X](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg2892/81/)