---
title: But, prompt as you are, if you fail to answer my three questions, yo… — Fifty Famous Stories Retold · tree and pragmatics
description: But, prompt as you are, if you fail to answer my three questions, you shall lose your head." Who acts: you, my. 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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[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg18442/10/23/)

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# Fifty Famous Stories Retold, II. the Three Answers., sentence 23

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But, prompt as you are, if you fail to answer my three questions, you shall lose your head."

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**Who acts:** you, my · **What happens:** be, fail, not answer, lose, question · **To what, where:** three questions, head

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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 (you, my), 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:pg18442:10:23
# text = But, prompt as you are, if you fail to answer my three questions, you shall lose your head."
1	But	but	CCONJ	CC	_	3	cc	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	3	punct	_	_
3	prompt	prompt	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	0	root	_	_
4	as	as	SCONJ	IN	_	6	mark	_	_
5	you	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Person=2|PronType=Prs	6	nsubj	_	_
6	are	be	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=2|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	3	advcl	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	10	punct	_	_
8	if	if	SCONJ	IN	_	10	mark	_	_
9	you	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Person=2|PronType=Prs	10	nsubj	_	_
10	fail	fail	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=2|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	3	conj	_	_
11	to	to	PART	TO	_	12	mark	_	_
12	answer	answer	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	10	xcomp	_	_
13	my	my	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Sing|Person=1|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	15	nmod:poss	_	_
14	three	three	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	15	nummod	_	_
15	questions	question	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	12	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	19	punct	_	_
17	you	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Person=2|PronType=Prs	19	nsubj	_	_
18	shall	shall	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	19	aux	_	_
19	lose	lose	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	3	conj	_	_
20	your	your	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Person=2|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	21	nmod:poss	_	_
21	head	head	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	19	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
22	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
23	"	"	PUNCT	''	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **does** | present | you |  |  |  |  |  | vn exist-47.1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 2 | **fail** | present | you |  |  |  |  |  | vn succeed-74-3-1-1 «NP V S\_INF»: agent=Agent clause=Eventuality |
| 3 | **not** **answer** *speech: assert* | to-infinitive | you *not said here* | my three questions |  |  |  |  | vn reciprocate-112-1 «NP V PP»: agent=Agent question=Eventuality |
| 4 | **lose** | shall | you | your head |  |  |  |  | vn succeed-74-3-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent head=Eventuality |
| 5 | **question** |  | my |  |  |  |  |  | nom question «communication transitive»: poss=agent |

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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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