---
title: "By Jabers, I thought I was only talking to a dacent boy," says the… — Celtic Fairy Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: "By Jabers, I thought I was only talking to a dacent boy," says the king. Who acts: I, king. 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 55

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"By Jabers, I thought I was only talking to a dacent boy," says the king.

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**Who acts:** I, king · **What happens:** think, talk, say · **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 (I, king), 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:pg7885:16:55
# text = "By Jabers, I thought I was only talking to a dacent boy," says the king.
1	"	"	PUNCT	``	_	6	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	By	by	ADP	IN	_	3	case	_	_
3	Jabers	Jaber	PROPN	NNPS	Number=Plur	6	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
4	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	3	punct	_	_
5	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	6	nsubj	_	_
6	thought	think	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	17	ccomp	_	_
7	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	10	nsubj	_	_
8	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	10	aux	_	_
9	only	only	ADV	RB	_	10	advmod	_	_
10	talking	talk	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	6	ccomp	_	_
11	to	to	ADP	IN	_	14	case	_	_
12	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	14	det	_	_
13	dacent	dacent	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	14	amod	_	_
14	boy	boy	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	10	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	6	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	"	"	PUNCT	''	_	17	punct	_	_
17	says	say	VERB	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
18	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	19	det	_	_
19	king	king	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	17	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
20	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	17	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **think** *speech: other* *in a quote* | past | I |  |  |  |  | by Jabers | vn consider-29.9-2 «NP V how S»: agent=Agent clause=Theme |
| 2 | **talk** *in a quote* | past · progressive | I |  |  |  |  | to a dacent boy | vn talk-37.5 «NP V PP.co-agent»: agent=Agent to boy=Co-Agent |
| 3 | **say** *speech: assert* | present | the king |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent clause=Topic |

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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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