---
title: All at once a gruff voice was heard behind her, saying, "Don't be so… — Fifty Famous Stories Retold · tree and pragmatics
description: All at once a gruff voice was heard behind her, saying, "Don't be so sure about that!" A sentence of «Fifty Famous Stories Retold» by James Baldwin, The Black Douglas., with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Fifty Famous Stories Retold, The Black Douglas., sentence 29

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All at once a gruff voice was heard behind her, saying, "Don't be so sure about that!"

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**What happens:** hear, say, not be · **To what, where:** gruff voice · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «Fifty Famous Stories Retold» by James Baldwin, The Black Douglas.. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: 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:pg18442:13:29
# text = All at once a gruff voice was heard behind her, saying, "Don't be so sure about that!"
1	All	all	DET	DT	PronType=Tot	8	advmod	_	_
2	at	at	ADP	IN	_	3	case	_	_
3	once	once	ADV	RB	NumForm=Word|NumType=Mult	8	obl	_	_
4	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	6	det	_	_
5	gruff	gruff	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	6	amod	_	_
6	voice	voice	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	8	nsubj	_	_
7	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	8	aux:pass	_	_
8	heard	hear	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	0	root	_	_
9	behind	behind	ADP	IN	_	10	case	_	_
10	her	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	8	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	12	punct	_	_
12	saying	say	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	8	advcl	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	19	punct	_	_
14	"	"	PUNCT	``	_	19	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	Do	do	AUX	VB	Mood=Imp|VerbForm=Fin	19	aux	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	n't	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	19	advmod	_	_
17	be	be	AUX	VB	VerbForm=Inf	19	cop	_	_
18	so	so	ADV	RB	_	19	advmod	_	_
19	sure	sure	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	12	conj	_	_
20	about	about	ADP	IN	_	21	case	_	_
21	that	that	PRON	DT	Number=Sing|PronType=Dem	19	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
22	!	!	PUNCT	.	_	8	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
23	"	"	PUNCT	''	_	8	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **hear** | past · passive |  | a gruff voice |  |  |  | behind Hush | vn see-30.1-1-1 «NP V S»: subject=Stimulus |
| 2 | **say** *speech: express* | gerund |  |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent |
| 3 | **not** **is** *in a quote* | infinitive · do-support |  |  |  |  |  | about that; sure *property* | tree rules |

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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 28](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg18442/13/28/)
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- ↑ back to [The Black Douglas.](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg18442/13/)