---
title: I keep The ford; but who shall guard it when I die?’ — The foray of Queen Meave, and other legends of I… · tree and pragmatics
description: I keep The ford; but who shall guard it when I die?’ Who acts: I. A sentence of «The foray of Queen Meave, and other legends of Ireland's heroic age» by Aubrey De Vere, Opening, part 12, 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/pg78491/12/57/)

<!-- 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/) / [The foray of Queen Meave, and other le…](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg78491/) / [Opening, part 12](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg78491/12/) / 57

# The foray of Queen Meave, and other legends of Ireland's heroic age, Opening, part 12, sentence 57

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
I keep The ford; but who shall guard it when I die?’

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** I · **What happens:** keep, guard, die · **To what, where:** ford

<!-- .vabout -->
This is a sentence of «The foray of Queen Meave, and other legends of Ireland's heroic age» by Aubrey De Vere, Opening, part 12. 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 -->
**Mova's own parse.** This tree may be wrong.

## The tree {#tree}

```conllu
# sent_id = book:pg78491:12:59
# text = I keep The ford; but who shall guard it when I die?’
1	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	2	nsubj	_	_
2	keep	keep	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	The	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	4	det	_	_
4	ford	ford	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	2	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
5	;	;	PUNCT	:	_	9	punct	_	_
6	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	9	cc	_	_
7	who	who	PRON	WP	PronType=Rel	9	nsubj	_	_
8	shall	shall	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	9	aux	_	_
9	guard	guard	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	2	advcl	_	_
10	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	9	obj	_	_
11	when	when	ADV	WRB	PronType=Int	13	advmod	_	_
12	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	13	nsubj	_	_
13	die	die	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	9	advcl	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	?	?	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	’	'	PUNCT	''	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **keep** | present | I | the ford |  |  |  |  | vn keep-15.2 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent ford=Theme |
| 2 | **guard** | shall |  | ford |  |  |  | who *nsubj* | vn defend-72.3 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent it=Beneficiary |
| 3 | **die** | present | I |  |  |  |  |  | vn calibratable\_cos-45.6.1 «NP.attribute V»: agent=Attribute |

<!-- .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:** «The foray of Queen Meave, and other legends of Ireland's heroic age» by Aubrey De Vere, Project Gutenberg book 78491 (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 56](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg78491/12/56/)
- next →: [sentence 58](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg78491/12/58/)
- ↑ back to [Opening, part 12](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg78491/12/)