---
title: "Sad news, sad news," said the abbot; and then he told him all that… — Fifty Famous Stories Retold · tree and pragmatics
description: "Sad news, sad news," said the abbot; and then he told him all that had happened. Who acts: Sad news, news, that. 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 4

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"Sad news, sad news," said the abbot; and then he told him all that had happened.

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**Who acts:** Sad news, news, that · **What happens:** say, tell, happen · **To what, where:** abbot · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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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 (Sad news, news, 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:pg18442:10:4
# text = "Sad news, sad news," said the abbot; and then he told him all that had happened.
1	"	"	PUNCT	``	_	3	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	Sad	sad	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	3	amod	_	_
3	news	news	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	9	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
4	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	6	punct	_	_
5	sad	sad	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	6	amod	_	_
6	news	news	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	3	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	"	"	PUNCT	''	_	3	punct	_	_
9	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
10	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	11	det	_	_
11	abbot	abbot	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	9	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	;	;	PUNCT	:	_	16	punct	_	_
13	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	16	cc	_	_
14	then	then	ADV	RB	PronType=Dem	16	advmod	_	_
15	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	16	nsubj	_	_
16	told	tell	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	9	conj	_	_
17	him	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	16	iobj	_	_
18	all	all	DET	PDT	PronType=Tot	21	det:predet	_	_
19	that	that	PRON	WDT	PronType=Rel	21	nsubj	_	_
20	had	have	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	21	aux	_	_
21	happened	happen	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part	16	ccomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
22	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	9	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **say** *speech: assert* | past | Sad news and sad news | the abbot |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V NP.topic»: agent=Agent abbot=Topic |
| 2 | **tell** *speech: assert* | past | news |  | abbot |  | then |  | vn transfer\_mesg-37.1.1-1-1 «NP V NP S\_INF»: agent=Agent he=Recipient clause=Topic |
| 3 | **happen** | past · perfect | that |  |  |  |  |  | vn occur-48.3-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |

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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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