---
title: "That is an easy question," said the shepherd. " — Fifty Famous Stories Retold · tree and pragmatics
description: "That is an easy question," said the shepherd. " Who acts: That, easy question. 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/pg18442/10/40/)

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# Fifty Famous Stories Retold, II. the Three Answers., sentence 40

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"That is an easy question," said the shepherd. "

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**Who acts:** That, easy question · **What happens:** be, say · **To what, where:** easy question, shepherd · **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 (That, easy question), 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:pg18442:10:40
# text = "That is an easy question," said the shepherd. "
1	"	"	PUNCT	``	_	6	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	That	that	PRON	DT	Number=Sing|PronType=Dem	6	nsubj	_	_
3	is	be	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	6	cop	_	_
4	an	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	6	det	_	_
5	easy	easy	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	6	amod	_	_
6	question	question	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	9	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	6	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	"	"	PUNCT	''	_	6	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	shepherd	shepherd	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	9	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	9	punct	_	_
13	"	"	PUNCT	''	_	9	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is a** *in a quote* | present | That | a easy question |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **say** *speech: assert* | past | a easy question | the shepherd |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V NP.topic»: agent=Agent shepherd=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:** «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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- ← previous: [sentence 39](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg18442/10/39/)
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- ↑ back to [II. the Three Answers.](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg18442/10/)