---
title: “Because,” said mac an Da’v, “you learned nothing in the Land of Pro… — Irish Fairy Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: “Because,” said mac an Da’v, “you learned nothing in the Land of Promise except how to eat a lot of food and how to do nothing in a deal of time.” Who acts: you. A sentence of «Irish Fairy Tales» by James Stephens, Chapter XIII, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Irish Fairy Tales, Chapter XIII, sentence 20

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“Because,” said mac an Da’v, “you learned nothing in the Land of Promise except how to eat a lot of food and how to do nothing in a deal of time.”

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**Who acts:** you · **What happens:** say, mac, learn, eat, do, deal · **To what, where:** Da’v, nothing, Land, lot, deal, time · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «Irish Fairy Tales» by James Stephens, Chapter XIII. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (you), 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:pg2892:84:20
# text = “Because,” said mac an Da’v, “you learned nothing in the Land of Promise except how to eat a lot of food and how to do nothing in a deal of time.”
1	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	5	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	Because	because	SCONJ	IN	_	5	mark	_	SpaceAfter=No
3	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	2	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
4	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	2	punct	_	_
5	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
6	mac	mac	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	5	ccomp	_	_
7	an	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	8	det	_	_
8	Da’v	Da'v	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	6	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	12	punct	_	_
10	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	12	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	you	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Person=2|PronType=Prs	12	nsubj	_	_
12	learned	learn	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=2|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	5	conj	_	_
13	nothing	nothing	PRON	NN	Number=Sing|PronType=Neg	12	obj	_	_
14	in	in	ADP	IN	_	16	case	_	_
15	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	16	det	_	_
16	Land	land	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	12	obl	_	_
17	of	of	ADP	IN	_	18	case	_	_
18	Promise	promise	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	16	nmod	_	_
19	except	except	ADP	IN	_	22	mark	_	_
20	how	how	ADV	WRB	PronType=Int	22	advmod	_	_
21	to	to	PART	TO	_	22	mark	_	_
22	eat	eat	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	18	acl	_	_
23	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	24	det	_	_
24	lot	lot	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	22	obj	_	_
25	of	of	ADP	IN	_	26	case	_	_
26	food	food	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	24	nmod	_	_
27	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	30	cc	_	_
28	how	how	ADV	WRB	PronType=Int	30	advmod	_	_
29	to	to	PART	TO	_	30	mark	_	_
30	do	do	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	22	conj	_	_
31	nothing	nothing	PRON	NN	Number=Sing|PronType=Neg	30	obj	_	_
32	in	in	ADP	IN	_	34	case	_	_
33	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	34	det	_	_
34	deal	deal	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	30	obl	_	_
35	of	of	ADP	IN	_	36	case	_	_
36	time	time	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	34	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
37	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	5	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
38	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	5	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **say** *speech: assert* | past |  |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent clause=Topic |
| 2 | **mac** | infinitive |  | a Da’v |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 3 | **learn** *in a quote* | past | you | nothing |  | the Land of Promise |  |  | vn learn-14-2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent nothing=Topic |
| 4 | **eat** *in a quote* | to-infinitive | you *not said here* | a lot of food |  |  |  |  | vn eat-39.1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent lot=Patient |
| 5 | **do** *in a quote* | to-infinitive | you *not said here* | nothing |  | a deal of time |  |  | vn act-114-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent nothing=Eventuality |
| 6 | **deal** *in a quote* |  |  | time |  |  |  |  | nom deal «act transitive»: of=patient |

<!-- .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.

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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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- ↑ back to [Chapter XIII](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg2892/84/)