---
title: But at last he did say something intelligible, and this is what he s… — Irish Fairy Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: But at last he did say something intelligible, and this is what he said. Who acts: King, this. 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 3

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But at last he did say something intelligible, and this is what he said.

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**Who acts:** King, this · **What happens:** say, be · **To what, where:** something, last · **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 (King, this), 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:pg2892:83:3
# text = But at last he did say something intelligible, and this is what he said.
1	But	but	CCONJ	CC	_	6	cc	_	_
2	at	at	ADP	IN	_	3	case	_	_
3	last	last	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	6	obl	_	_
4	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	6	nsubj	_	_
5	did	do	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	6	aux	_	_
6	say	say	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	0	root	_	_
7	something	something	PRON	NN	Number=Sing|PronType=Ind	6	obj	_	_
8	intelligible	intelligible	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	7	amod	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	13	punct	_	_
10	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	13	cc	_	_
11	this	this	PRON	DT	Number=Sing|PronType=Dem	13	nsubj	_	_
12	is	be	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	13	cop	_	_
13	what	what	PRON	WP	PronType=Rel	7	conj	_	_
14	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	15	nsubj	_	_
15	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	13	acl:relcl	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	6	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **say** *speech: assert* | past · do-support | King | something |  | last |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V NP.topic»: agent=Agent something=Topic |
| 2 | **is a** | present | this |  |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 3 | **say** *speech: assert* | past | King |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent |

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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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