---
title: There is a town in England called Go-tham, and many merry stories ar… — Fifty Famous Stories Retold · tree and pragmatics
description: There is a town in England called Go-tham, and many merry stories are told of the queer people who used to live there. Who acts: town, queer people. A sentence of «Fifty Famous Stories Retold» by James Baldwin, Three Men of Gotham., with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Fifty Famous Stories Retold, Three Men of Gotham., sentence 1

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There is a town in England called Go-tham, and many merry stories are told of the queer people who used to live there.

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**Who acts:** town, queer people · **What happens:** be, call, tell, use, live · **To what, where:** town, many merry stories · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «Fifty Famous Stories Retold» by James Baldwin, Three Men of Gotham.. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (town, queer people), 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:pg18442:14:1
# text = There is a town in England called Go-tham, and many merry stories are told of the queer people who used to live there.
1	There	there	PRON	EX	PronType=Dem	2	expl	_	_
2	is	be	VERB	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	4	det	_	_
4	town	town	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	2	nsubj	_	_
5	in	in	ADP	IN	_	6	case	_	_
6	England	England	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	4	nmod	_	_
7	called	call	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	4	acl	_	_
8	Go	Go	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	7	xcomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	10	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	tham	tham	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	8	appos	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	17	punct	_	_
12	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	17	cc	_	_
13	many	many	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	15	amod	_	_
14	merry	merry	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	15	amod	_	_
15	stories	story	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	17	nsubj:pass	_	_
16	are	be	AUX	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	17	aux:pass	_	_
17	told	tell	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	2	conj	_	_
18	of	of	ADP	IN	_	21	case	_	_
19	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	21	det	_	_
20	queer	queer	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	21	compound	_	_
21	people	people	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	17	obl	_	_
22	who	who	PRON	WP	PronType=Rel	23	nsubj	_	_
23	used	use	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	21	acl:relcl	_	_
24	to	to	PART	TO	_	25	mark	_	_
25	live	live	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	23	xcomp	_	_
26	there	there	ADV	RB	PronType=Dem	25	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
27	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **be** | present | a town in England |  |  | there |  |  | vn exist-47.1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 2 | **call** | participle |  | a town in England *not said here* |  |  |  |  | vn initiate\_communication-37.4.2-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 3 | **tell** *speech: assert* | present · passive |  | many merry stories |  |  |  | of the queer people | vn transfer\_mesg-37.1.1-1-1 «NP V NP.recipient»: subject=Recipient |
| 4 | **use** | past | the queer people |  |  |  |  |  | vn use-105.1 «NP V NP S\_INF»: agent=Agent clause=Eventuality |
| 5 | **live** | to-infinitive | the queer people *not said here* |  |  | there |  |  | vn exist-47.1-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |

<!-- .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.

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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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