---
title: He pulled a pistol from his pocket, and shot at the man who would ha… — Fifty Famous Stories Retold · tree and pragmatics
description: He pulled a pistol from his pocket, and shot at the man who would have be-friend-ed him. Who acts: soldier, man. A sentence of «Fifty Famous Stories Retold» by James Baldwin, The Ungrateful Soldier., with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg18442/18/14/)

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# Fifty Famous Stories Retold, The Ungrateful Soldier., sentence 14

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He pulled a pistol from his pocket, and shot at the man who would have be-friend-ed him.

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**Who acts:** soldier, man · **What happens:** pull, shoot, have, be · **To what, where:** pistol, pocket, friend ed

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This is a sentence of «Fifty Famous Stories Retold» by James Baldwin, The Ungrateful Soldier.. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (soldier, man), 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:pg18442:18:14
# text = He pulled a pistol from his pocket, and shot at the man who would have be-friend-ed him.
1	He	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	2	nsubj	_	_
2	pulled	pull	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	4	det	_	_
4	pistol	pistol	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	2	obj	_	_
5	from	from	ADP	IN	_	7	case	_	_
6	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	7	nmod:poss	_	_
7	pocket	pocket	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	2	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	10	punct	_	_
9	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	10	cc	_	_
10	shot	shoot	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	2	parataxis	_	_
11	at	at	ADP	IN	_	13	case	_	_
12	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	13	det	_	_
13	man	man	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	10	obl	_	_
14	who	who	PRON	WP	PronType=Rel	16	nsubj	_	_
15	would	would	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	16	aux	_	_
16	have	have	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	13	acl:relcl	_	_
17	be	be	AUX	VB	VerbForm=Inf	21	cop	_	SpaceAfter=No
18	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	19	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
19	friend	friend	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	21	compound	_	SpaceAfter=No
20	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	19	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
21	ed	ed	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	16	obj	_	_
22	him	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	21	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
23	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **pull** | past | soldier | a pistol |  | soldier's pocket |  |  | vn carry-11.4 «NP V NP PP.initial\_location»: agent=Agent pistol=Theme from pocket=Initial\_Location |
| 2 | **shoot** | past |  |  |  |  |  | at the man | vn throw-17.1-1 «NP V NP PP.destinations»: agent=Agent at man=Destination |
| 3 | **have** | would | the man |  |  |  |  |  | vn birth-28.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent |
| 4 | **is a** | infinitive |  | friend ed |  |  |  |  | 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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