---
title: “Why did you let him near you?” said the king to Duv Laca. — Irish Fairy Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: “Why did you let him near you?” said the king to Duv Laca. Who acts: Duv, king. A sentence of «Irish Fairy Tales» by James Stephens, Chapter XVII, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Irish Fairy Tales, Chapter XVII, sentence 30

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“Why did you let him near you?” said the king to Duv Laca.

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**Who acts:** Duv, king · **What happens:** let, say · **To what, where:** Tibraide, Duv · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «Irish Fairy Tales» by James Stephens, Chapter XVII. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Duv, king), 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:pg2892:88:30
# text = “Why did you let him near you?” said the king to Duv Laca.
1	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	5	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	Why	why	ADV	WRB	PronType=Int	5	advmod	_	_
3	did	do	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=2|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	5	aux	_	_
4	you	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Person=2|PronType=Prs	5	nsubj	_	_
5	let	let	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	11	ccomp	_	_
6	him	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	5	obj	_	_
7	near	near	ADP	IN	_	8	case	_	_
8	you	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Person=2|PronType=Prs	5	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	?	?	PUNCT	.	_	5	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	5	punct	_	_
11	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
12	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	13	det	_	_
13	king	king	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	11	obj	_	_
14	to	to	ADP	IN	_	15	case	_	_
15	Duv	Duv	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	11	obl	_	_
16	Laca	Laca	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	15	flat	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	11	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **let** *in a quote* | past · do-support | Duv | Tibraide |  |  |  | near Duv | vn give-13.1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent he=Theme |
| 2 | **say** *speech: ask* | past | the king |  | Duv |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V PP.recipient S-Quote»: agent=Agent to duv=Recipient clause=Topic |

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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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- ← previous: [sentence 29](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg2892/88/29/)
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- ↑ back to [Chapter XVII](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg2892/88/)