---
title: "I am sure I could not think of changing places with you, sir," he s… — Fifty Famous Stories Retold · tree and pragmatics
description: "I am sure I could not think of changing places with you, sir," he said. Who acts: miller. A sentence of «Fifty Famous Stories Retold» by James Baldwin, The Miller of the Dee., 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/pg18442/16/13/)

<!-- 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 Miller of the Dee.](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg18442/16/) / 13

# Fifty Famous Stories Retold, The Miller of the Dee., sentence 13

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
"I am sure I could not think of changing places with you, sir," he said.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** miller · **What happens:** be, not think, change, say · **To what, where:** places · **Speech:** someone speaks here

<!-- .vabout -->
This is a sentence of «Fifty Famous Stories Retold» by James Baldwin, The Miller of the Dee.. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (miller), 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:pg18442:16:13
# text = "I am sure I could not think of changing places with you, sir," he said.
1	"	"	PUNCT	``	_	4	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	4	nsubj	_	_
3	am	be	AUX	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	4	cop	_	_
4	sure	sure	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	19	ccomp	_	_
5	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	8	nsubj	_	_
6	could	could	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	8	aux	_	_
7	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	8	advmod	_	_
8	think	think	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	4	ccomp	_	_
9	of	of	SCONJ	IN	_	10	mark	_	_
10	changing	change	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	8	advcl	_	_
11	places	place	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	10	obj	_	_
12	with	with	ADP	IN	_	13	case	_	_
13	you	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Person=2|PronType=Prs	11	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	15	punct	_	_
15	sir	sir	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	11	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	4	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	"	"	PUNCT	''	_	4	punct	_	_
18	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	19	nsubj	_	_
19	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
20	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	19	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is** *in a quote* | present | miller |  |  |  |  | sure *property* | tree rules |
| 2 | **not** **think** *speech: other* *in a quote* | could | miller |  |  |  |  |  | vn focus-87.1-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 3 | **change** *in a quote* | gerund | miller *not said here* | places and sir |  |  |  | with you | vn exchange-13.6.1 «NP V NP PP.co-agent»: agent=Agent place=Theme with you=Co-Agent |
| 4 | **say** *speech: assert* | past | miller |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent |

<!-- .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 12](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg18442/16/12/)
- next →: [sentence 14](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg18442/16/14/)
- ↑ back to [The Miller of the Dee.](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg18442/16/)