---
title: "And what are _you_ doing?" said the sheriff to the young men. — Fifty Famous Stories Retold · tree and pragmatics
description: "And what are _you_ doing?" said the sheriff to the young men. Who acts: young men, sheriff. A sentence of «Fifty Famous Stories Retold» by James Baldwin, Other Wise Men of Gotham., with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Fifty Famous Stories Retold, Other Wise Men of Gotham., sentence 38

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"And what are \_you\_ doing?" said the sheriff to the young men.

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**Who acts:** young men, sheriff · **What happens:** be, do, say · **To what, where:** young men · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «Fifty Famous Stories Retold» by James Baldwin, Other Wise 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 (young men, sheriff), 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:pg18442:15:38
# text = "And what are _you_ doing?" said the sheriff to the young men.
1	"	"	PUNCT	``	_	3	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	And	and	CCONJ	CC	_	3	cc	_	_
3	what	what	PRON	WP	PronType=Int	11	nsubj:outer	_	_
4	are	be	AUX	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=2|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	3	cop	_	_
5	_	_	PUNCT	NFP	_	3	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	you	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Person=2|PronType=Prs	3	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	_	_	PUNCT	NFP	_	8	punct	_	_
8	doing	do	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	3	parataxis	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	?	?	PUNCT	.	_	8	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	"	"	PUNCT	''	_	3	punct	_	_
11	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
12	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	13	det	_	_
13	sheriff	sheriff	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	11	obj	_	_
14	to	to	ADP	IN	_	17	case	_	_
15	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	17	det	_	_
16	young	young	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	17	amod	_	_
17	men	man	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	11	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
18	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	11	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is a** *in a quote* | present | the young men *= man* |  |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **do** *in a quote* | gerund |  |  |  |  |  |  | vn act-114-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 3 | **say** *speech: ask* | past | the sheriff |  | the young men |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V PP.recipient S-Quote»: agent=Agent to man=Recipient |

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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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