---
title: Bruce almost forgot his own troubles as he watched her swing herself… — Fifty Famous Stories Retold · tree and pragmatics
description: Bruce almost forgot his own troubles as he watched her swing herself out upon the slender line. Who acts: Bruce, spider. A sentence of «Fifty Famous Stories Retold» by James Baldwin, Bruce and the Spider., with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

<!-- md -->
[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg18442/12/16/)

<!-- crumbs -->
[home](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) / [corpora](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/) / [tales](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/) / [Fifty Famous Stories Retold](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg18442/) / [Bruce and the Spider.](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg18442/12/) / 16

# Fifty Famous Stories Retold, Bruce and the Spider., sentence 16

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
Bruce almost forgot his own troubles as he watched her swing herself out upon the slender line.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** Bruce, spider · **What happens:** forget, watch out, trouble, swing · **To what, where:** own troubles, swing

<!-- .vabout -->
This is a sentence of «Fifty Famous Stories Retold» by James Baldwin, Bruce and the Spider.. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Bruce, spider), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

<!-- .note-en -->
**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:pg18442:12:16
# text = Bruce almost forgot his own troubles as he watched her swing herself out upon the slender line.
1	Bruce	Bruce	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	3	nsubj	_	_
2	almost	almost	ADV	RB	_	3	advmod	_	_
3	forgot	forget	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
4	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	6	nmod:poss	_	_
5	own	own	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	6	amod	_	_
6	troubles	trouble	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	3	obj	_	_
7	as	as	SCONJ	IN	_	9	mark	_	_
8	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	9	nsubj	_	_
9	watched	watch	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	3	advcl	_	_
10	her	her	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	11	nmod:poss	_	_
11	swing	swing	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	9	obj	_	_
12	herself	herself	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs|Reflex=Yes	9	obl	_	_
13	out	out	ADP	RP	_	9	compound:prt	_	_
14	upon	upon	ADP	IN	_	17	case	_	_
15	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	17	det	_	_
16	slender	slender	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	17	amod	_	_
17	line	line	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	9	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
18	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **forget** | past | Bruce | Bruce's own troubles |  |  |  | almost *property* | tree rules |
| 2 | **watch out** | past | Bruce | spider's swing |  |  |  | upon the slender line; spider *obl* | vn assessment-34.1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent swing=Theme |
| 3 | **trouble** |  | Bruce |  |  |  |  |  | nom trouble «cognition transitive»: poss=agent |
| 4 | **swing** |  | spider |  |  |  |  |  | nom swing «state intransitive»: poss=agent |

<!-- .note -->
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.

<!-- div src -->

**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.

<!-- /div -->

<!-- pn -->
- ← previous: [sentence 15](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg18442/12/15/)
- next →: [sentence 17](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg18442/12/17/)
- ↑ back to [Bruce and the Spider.](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg18442/12/)