---
title: “I was thinking about my own lamb,” said mac an Da’v. — Irish Fairy Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: “I was thinking about my own lamb,” said mac an Da’v. Who acts: I. A sentence of «Irish Fairy Tales» by James Stephens, Chapter XVIII, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

<!-- md -->
[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg2892/89/23/)

<!-- crumbs -->
[home](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) / [corpora](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/) / [tales](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/) / [Irish Fairy Tales](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg2892/) / [Chapter XVIII](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg2892/89/) / 23

# Irish Fairy Tales, Chapter XVIII, sentence 23

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
“I was thinking about my own lamb,” said mac an Da’v.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** I · **What happens:** think, say, mac · **To what, where:** Da’v · **Speech:** someone speaks here

<!-- .vabout -->
This is a sentence of «Irish Fairy Tales» by James Stephens, Chapter XVIII. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (I), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

<!-- .note-en -->
**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:pg2892:89:23
# text = “I was thinking about my own lamb,” said mac an Da’v.
1	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	4	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	4	nsubj	_	_
3	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	4	aux	_	_
4	thinking	think	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	11	ccomp	_	_
5	about	about	ADP	IN	_	8	case	_	_
6	my	my	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Sing|Person=1|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	8	nmod:poss	_	_
7	own	own	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	8	amod	_	_
8	lamb	lamb	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	4	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	4	punct	_	_
11	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
12	mac	mac	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	11	ccomp	_	_
13	an	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	14	det	_	_
14	Da’v	Da'v	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	12	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	11	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **think** *speech: other* *in a quote* | past · progressive | I |  |  |  |  | about my own lamb | vn focus-87.1-1 «NP V PP.topic»: agent=Agent about lamb=Topic |
| 2 | **say** *speech: assert* | past |  |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent clause=Topic |
| 3 | **mac** | infinitive |  | a Da’v |  |  |  |  | tree rules |

<!-- .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.

<!-- div src -->

**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.

<!-- /div -->

<!-- pn -->
- ← previous: [sentence 22](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg2892/89/22/)
- next →: [sentence 24](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg2892/89/24/)
- ↑ back to [Chapter XVIII](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg2892/89/)