---
title: He touched the dog too, and it became a little silky lapdog that cou… — Irish Fairy Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: He touched the dog too, and it became a little silky lapdog that could nestle in your palm. Who acts: Mongan, dog, little silky lapdog. 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 44

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He touched the dog too, and it became a little silky lapdog that could nestle in your palm.

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**Who acts:** Mongan, dog, little silky lapdog · **What happens:** touch, become, nestle · **To what, where:** dog, little silky lapdog, palm

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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 (Mongan, dog, little silky lapdog), 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:pg2892:90:44
# text = He touched the dog too, and it became a little silky lapdog that could nestle in your palm.
1	He	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	2	nsubj	_	_
2	touched	touch	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	4	det	_	_
4	dog	dog	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	2	obj	_	_
5	too	too	ADV	RB	_	2	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	9	punct	_	_
7	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	9	cc	_	_
8	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	9	nsubj	_	_
9	became	become	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	2	conj	_	_
10	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	13	det	_	_
11	little	little	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	13	amod	_	_
12	silky	silky	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	13	amod	_	_
13	lapdog	lapdog	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	9	xcomp	_	_
14	that	that	PRON	WDT	PronType=Rel	16	nsubj	_	_
15	could	could	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	16	aux	_	_
16	nestle	nestle	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	13	acl:relcl	_	_
17	in	in	ADP	IN	_	19	case	_	_
18	your	your	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Person=2|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	19	nmod:poss	_	_
19	palm	palm	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	16	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
20	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **touch** | past | Mongan | the dog |  |  |  |  | vn contiguous\_location-47.8-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Theme dog=Co-Theme |
| 2 | **become** | past | dog | a little silky lapdog |  |  |  |  | vn become-109.1-1-1 «NP V PP.attribute»: agent=Patient |
| 3 | **nestle** | could | a little silky lapdog |  |  | your palm |  |  | vn spatial\_configuration-47.6-1 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Theme in palm=Location |

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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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