---
title: "Divil a fairer," says the saint; "that's the way to do business. — Celtic Fairy Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: "Divil a fairer," says the saint; "that's the way to do business. Who acts: Divil, that. A sentence of «Celtic Fairy Tales» by Joseph Jacobs, King O'toole and His Goose, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Celtic Fairy Tales, King O'toole and His Goose, sentence 30

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"Divil a fairer," says the saint; "that's the way to do business.

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**Who acts:** Divil, that · **What happens:** say, be, do · **To what, where:** saint, way, business · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «Celtic Fairy Tales» by Joseph Jacobs, King O'toole and His Goose. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Divil, that), 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:pg7885:16:30
# text = "Divil a fairer," says the saint; "that's the way to do business.
1	"	"	PUNCT	``	_	2	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	Divil	Divil	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	7	nsubj	_	_
3	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	4	det	_	_
4	fairer	fair	ADJ	JJR	Degree=Cmp	2	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
5	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	2	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	"	"	PUNCT	''	_	2	punct	_	_
7	says	say	VERB	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
8	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	9	det	_	_
9	saint	saint	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	;	;	PUNCT	,	_	15	punct	_	_
11	"	"	PUNCT	``	_	15	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	that	that	PRON	DT	Number=Sing|PronType=Dem	15	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	's	be	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	15	cop	_	_
14	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	15	det	_	_
15	way	way	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	parataxis	_	_
16	to	to	PART	TO	_	17	mark	_	_
17	do	do	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	15	acl	_	_
18	business	business	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	17	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
19	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	7	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **say** *speech: assert* | present | Divil | the saint |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **is a** *in a quote* | present | that | the way |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 3 | **do** *in a quote* | to-infinitive | Divil *not said here* | business |  |  |  |  | vn act-114-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent business=Eventuality |

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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:** «Celtic Fairy Tales» by Joseph Jacobs, Project Gutenberg book 7885 (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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