---
title: “Whatever it was,” said mac an Da’v, “what was it?” — Irish Fairy Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: “Whatever it was,” said mac an Da’v, “what was it?” Who acts: noise. A sentence of «Irish Fairy Tales» by James Stephens, Chapter XIV, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Irish Fairy Tales, Chapter XIV, sentence 29

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“Whatever it was,” said mac an Da’v, “what was it?”

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**Who acts:** noise · **What happens:** be, say, mac · **To what, where:** Whatever, Da’v, noise · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «Irish Fairy Tales» by James Stephens, Chapter XIV. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (noise), 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:pg2892:85:29
# text = “Whatever it was,” said mac an Da’v, “what was it?”
1	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	7	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	Whatever	whatever	PRON	WP	PronType=Rel	7	ccomp	_	_
3	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	2	nsubj	_	_
4	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	2	cop	_	SpaceAfter=No
5	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	2	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	2	punct	_	_
7	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
8	mac	mac	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	7	ccomp	_	_
9	an	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	10	det	_	_
10	Da’v	Da'v	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	8	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	13	punct	_	_
12	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	13	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	what	what	PRON	WP	PronType=Int	7	ccomp	_	_
14	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	15	cop	_	_
15	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	13	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	?	?	PUNCT	.	_	13	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	13	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* | past | noise | Whatever |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **say** *speech: ask* | past |  |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent clause=Topic |
| 3 | **mac** | infinitive |  | a Da’v |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 4 | **is a** *in a quote* | past |  | noise |  |  |  |  | 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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