---
title: Nothing could frighten an English lad more than to tell him that the… — Fifty Famous Stories Retold · tree and pragmatics
description: Nothing could frighten an English lad more than to tell him that the Black Douglas was not far away. Who acts: Nothing, Black Douglas. 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 6

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Nothing could frighten an English lad more than to tell him that the Black Douglas was not far away.

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**Who acts:** Nothing, Black Douglas · **What happens:** frighten, tell, not be · **To what, where:** English lad, war · **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: who acts (Nothing, Black Douglas), 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:pg18442:13:6
# text = Nothing could frighten an English lad more than to tell him that the Black Douglas was not far away.
1	Nothing	nothing	PRON	NN	Number=Sing|PronType=Neg	3	nsubj	_	_
2	could	could	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	3	aux	_	_
3	frighten	frighten	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	0	root	_	_
4	an	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	6	det	_	_
5	English	English	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	6	amod	_	_
6	lad	lad	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	obj	_	_
7	more	more	ADV	RBR	Degree=Cmp	3	advmod	_	_
8	than	than	ADP	IN	_	7	fixed	_	_
9	to	to	PART	TO	_	10	mark	_	_
10	tell	tell	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	3	advcl	_	_
11	him	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	10	iobj	_	_
12	that	that	SCONJ	IN	_	19	mark	_	_
13	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	15	det	_	_
14	Black	Black	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	15	compound	_	_
15	Douglas	Douglas	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	19	nsubj	_	_
16	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	19	cop	_	_
17	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	19	advmod	_	_
18	far	far	ADV	RB	Degree=Pos	19	advmod	_	_
19	away	away	ADV	RB	_	10	advcl	_	SpaceAfter=No
20	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **frighten** | could | Nothing | a English lad |  |  |  |  | vn amuse-31.1 «NP V NP»: agent=Stimulus lad=Experiencer |
| 2 | **tell** *speech: assert* | to-infinitive | Nothing *not said here* |  | war |  |  |  | vn transfer\_mesg-37.1.1-1-1 «NP V NP.recipient»: agent=Agent he=Recipient |
| 3 | **not** **is** | past | the Black Douglas |  |  |  |  | away, far *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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