---
title: “How are we going to get into the castle?” asked mac an Da’v. — Irish Fairy Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: “How are we going to get into the castle?” asked mac an Da’v. Who acts: we. A sentence of «Irish Fairy Tales» by James Stephens, Chapter XIX, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg2892/90/2/)

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# Irish Fairy Tales, Chapter XIX, sentence 2

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“How are we going to get into the castle?” asked mac an Da’v.

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**Who acts:** we · **What happens:** go, get, ask · **To what, where:** asked mac, castle · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «Irish Fairy Tales» by James Stephens, Chapter XIX. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (we), 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:pg2892:90:2
# text = “How are we going to get into the castle?” asked mac an Da’v.
1	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	5	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	How	how	ADV	WRB	PronType=Int	5	advmod	_	_
3	are	be	AUX	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=1|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	5	aux	_	_
4	we	we	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=1|PronType=Prs	5	nsubj	_	_
5	going	go	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	0	root	_	_
6	to	to	PART	TO	_	7	mark	_	_
7	get	get	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	5	xcomp	_	_
8	into	into	ADP	IN	_	10	case	_	_
9	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	10	det	_	_
10	castle	castle	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	?	?	PUNCT	.	_	5	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	5	punct	_	_
13	asked	ask	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	14	amod	_	_
14	mac	mac	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	xcomp	_	_
15	an	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	16	det	_	_
16	Da’v	Da'v	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	5	xcomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	5	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **go** *in a quote* | present · progressive | we | asked mac |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7 «NP V S-Quote»: agent=Agent clause=Topic |
| 2 | **get** *in a quote* | to-infinitive | we *not said here* |  |  | the castle |  |  | vn escape-51.1 «NP V PP.destination»: agent=Theme into castle=Destination |
| 3 | **ask** *speech: ask* | participle |  |  |  |  |  |  | vn inquire-37.1.2 «NP V»: 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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