---
title: “Who is coming?” asked Duv Laca. — Irish Fairy Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: “Who is coming?” asked Duv Laca. A sentence of «Irish Fairy Tales» by James Stephens, Chapter XI, 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/pg2892/82/8/)

<!-- 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 XI](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg2892/82/) / 8

# Irish Fairy Tales, Chapter XI, sentence 8

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
“Who is coming?” asked Duv Laca.

<!-- .vintro -->
**What happens:** come, ask · **To what, where:** Duv · **Speech:** someone speaks here

<!-- .vabout -->
This is a sentence of «Irish Fairy Tales» by James Stephens, Chapter XI. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: 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:pg2892:82:8
# text = “Who is coming?” asked Duv Laca.
1	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	4	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	Who	who	PRON	WP	PronType=Rel	4	nsubj	_	_
3	is	be	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	4	aux	_	_
4	coming	come	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	7	ccomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
5	?	?	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	4	punct	_	_
7	asked	ask	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
8	Duv	Duv	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	7	iobj	_	_
9	Laca	Laca	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	8	flat	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	7	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **come** *in a quote* | present · progressive |  |  |  |  |  |  | vn escape-51.1-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 2 | **ask** *speech: ask* | past |  |  | Duv |  |  |  | vn urge-58.1-1-1 «NP V NP that S»: agent=Agent duv=Recipient clause=Topic |

<!-- .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 7](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg2892/82/7/)
- next →: [sentence 9](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg2892/82/9/)
- ↑ back to [Chapter XI](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg2892/82/)