---
title: “The cat has a sore tail,” said she, “by reason of sitting too close… — Irish Fairy Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: “The cat has a sore tail,” said she, “by reason of sitting too close to a part of the hob that was hot. Who acts: cat, reason, hob. 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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# Irish Fairy Tales, Chapter XIX, sentence 30

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“The cat has a sore tail,” said she, “by reason of sitting too close to a part of the hob that was hot.

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**Who acts:** cat, reason, hob · **What happens:** have, say, sit, be · **To what, where:** sore tail · **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 (cat, reason, hob), 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:pg2892:90:30
# text = “The cat has a sore tail,” said she, “by reason of sitting too close to a part of the hob that was hot.
1	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	4	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	The	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	3	det	_	_
3	cat	cat	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	nsubj	_	_
4	has	have	VERB	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	10	ccomp	_	_
5	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	7	det	_	_
6	sore	sore	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	7	amod	_	_
7	tail	tail	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	4	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	4	punct	_	_
10	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
11	she	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	10	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	15	punct	_	_
13	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	15	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	by	by	ADP	IN	_	15	case	_	_
15	reason	reason	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	10	ccomp	_	_
16	of	of	SCONJ	IN	_	17	mark	_	_
17	sitting	sit	VERB	VBG	VerbForm=Ger	15	acl	_	_
18	too	too	ADV	RB	_	19	advmod	_	_
19	close	close	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	17	xcomp	_	_
20	to	to	ADP	IN	_	22	case	_	_
21	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	22	det	_	_
22	part	part	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	19	obl	_	_
23	of	of	ADP	IN	_	25	case	_	_
24	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	25	det	_	_
25	hob	hob	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	22	nmod	_	_
26	that	that	PRON	WDT	PronType=Rel	28	nsubj	_	_
27	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	28	cop	_	_
28	hot	hot	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	25	acl:relcl	_	SpaceAfter=No
29	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	10	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **have** *in a quote* | present | the cat | a sore tail |  |  |  |  | vn birth-28.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent tail=Patient |
| 2 | **say** *speech: assert* | past | cat |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent clause=Topic |
| 3 | **sit** *in a quote* | gerund | reason *not said here* |  |  |  |  | close *property* | vn assuming\_position-50 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 4 | **is** *in a quote* | past | the hob |  |  |  |  | hot *property* | 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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- ↑ back to [Chapter XIX](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg2892/90/)