---
title: “This is news,” said the king, “and it is good news.” — Irish Fairy Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: “This is news,” said the king, “and it is good news.” Who acts: news. A sentence of «Irish Fairy Tales» by James Stephens, Chapter XII, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Irish Fairy Tales, Chapter XII, sentence 13

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“This is news,” said the king, “and it is good news.”

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**Who acts:** news · **What happens:** be, say · **To what, where:** news, king, good news · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «Irish Fairy Tales» by James Stephens, Chapter XII. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (news), 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:pg2892:83:13
# text = “This is news,” said the king, “and it is good news.”
1	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	7	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	This	this	DET	DT	Number=Sing|PronType=Dem	4	det	_	_
3	is	be	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	4	cop	_	_
4	news	news	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
5	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	4	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	4	punct	_	_
7	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
8	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	9	det	_	_
9	king	king	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	16	punct	_	_
11	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	16	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	16	cc	_	_
13	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	16	nsubj	_	_
14	is	be	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	16	cop	_	_
15	good	good	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	16	amod	_	_
16	news	news	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	9	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	7	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
18	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	7	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is a** *in a quote* | present |  | this news |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **say** *speech: assert* | past | this news | the king and good news |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V NP.topic»: agent=Agent king=Topic |
| 3 | **is a** *in a quote* | present | news | good news |  |  |  |  | tree rules |

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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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