---
title: He was a good friend of the king, and one of his strongest helpers. — Fifty Famous Stories Retold · tree and pragmatics
description: He was a good friend of the king, and one of his strongest helpers. Who acts: face. A sentence of «Fifty Famous Stories Retold» by James Baldwin, The Black Douglas., 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/pg18442/13/3/)

<!-- 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/) / [The Black Douglas.](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg18442/13/) / 3

# Fifty Famous Stories Retold, The Black Douglas., sentence 3

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
He was a good friend of the king, and one of his strongest helpers.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** face · **What happens:** be · **To what, where:** good friend

<!-- .vabout -->
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: who acts (face), 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:pg18442:13:3
# text = He was a good friend of the king, and one of his strongest helpers.
1	He	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	5	nsubj	_	_
2	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	5	cop	_	_
3	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	5	det	_	_
4	good	good	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	5	amod	_	_
5	friend	friend	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	0	root	_	_
6	of	of	ADP	IN	_	8	case	_	_
7	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	8	det	_	_
8	king	king	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	11	punct	_	_
10	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	11	cc	_	_
11	one	one	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	5	conj	_	_
12	of	of	ADP	IN	_	15	case	_	_
13	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	15	nmod:poss	_	_
14	strongest	strong	ADJ	JJS	Degree=Sup	15	amod	_	_
15	helpers	helper	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	11	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	5	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is a** | past | face | a good friend |  |  |  | of the king | tree rules |

<!-- .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 2](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg18442/13/2/)
- next →: [sentence 4](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg18442/13/4/)
- ↑ back to [The Black Douglas.](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg18442/13/)