---
title: If nothing else can be done, I can at least die in your place." — Fifty Famous Stories Retold · tree and pragmatics
description: If nothing else can be done, I can at least die in your place." Who acts: I. A sentence of «Fifty Famous Stories Retold» by James Baldwin, II. the Three Answers., with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Fifty Famous Stories Retold, II. the Three Answers., sentence 11

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If nothing else can be done, I can at least die in your place."

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**Who acts:** I · **What happens:** do, die · **To what, where:** nothing, least

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This is a sentence of «Fifty Famous Stories Retold» by James Baldwin, II. the Three Answers.. 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.

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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:pg18442:10:11
# text = If nothing else can be done, I can at least die in your place."
1	If	if	SCONJ	IN	_	6	mark	_	_
2	nothing	nothing	PRON	NN	Number=Sing|PronType=Neg	6	nsubj:pass	_	_
3	else	else	ADV	RB	_	2	advmod	_	_
4	can	can	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	6	aux	_	_
5	be	be	AUX	VB	VerbForm=Inf	6	aux:pass	_	_
6	done	do	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	12	advcl	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	6	punct	_	_
8	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	12	nsubj	_	_
9	can	can	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	12	aux	_	_
10	at	at	ADP	IN	_	11	case	_	_
11	least	least	ADJ	JJS	Degree=Sup	12	obl	_	_
12	die	die	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	0	root	_	_
13	in	in	ADP	IN	_	15	case	_	_
14	your	your	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Person=2|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	15	nmod:poss	_	_
15	place	place	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	12	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	12	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	"	"	PUNCT	''	_	12	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **do** *a condition, not said to happen* | can · passive |  | nothing |  |  |  |  | vn act-114-1 «NP V NP»: subject=Eventuality |
| 2 | **die** | can | I |  |  | least |  | in your place | vn calibratable\_cos-45.6.1 «NP.patient V PP.attribute»: agent=Patient in place=Attribute |

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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:** «Fifty Famous Stories Retold» by James Baldwin, Project Gutenberg book 18442 (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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