---
title: I was going to befriend you, and you repay me by trying to kill me. — Fifty Famous Stories Retold · tree and pragmatics
description: I was going to befriend you, and you repay me by trying to kill me. Who acts: I, you. 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/pg18442/18/17/)

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# Fifty Famous Stories Retold, The Ungrateful Soldier., sentence 17

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I was going to befriend you, and you repay me by trying to kill me.

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**Who acts:** I, you · **What happens:** go, befriend, repay, try, kill · **To what, where:** you, me

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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 (I, you), 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:pg18442:18:17
# text = I was going to befriend you, and you repay me by trying to kill me.
1	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	3	nsubj	_	_
2	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	3	aux	_	_
3	going	go	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	0	root	_	_
4	to	to	PART	TO	_	5	mark	_	_
5	befriend	befriend	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	3	xcomp	_	_
6	you	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Person=2|PronType=Prs	5	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	10	punct	_	_
8	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	10	cc	_	_
9	you	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Person=2|PronType=Prs	10	nsubj	_	_
10	repay	repay	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=2|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	3	conj	_	_
11	me	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	10	obj	_	_
12	by	by	SCONJ	IN	_	13	mark	_	_
13	trying	try	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	10	advcl	_	_
14	to	to	PART	TO	_	15	mark	_	_
15	kill	kill	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	13	xcomp	_	_
16	me	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	15	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **go** | past · progressive | I |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7 «NP V S-Quote»: agent=Agent clause=Topic |
| 2 | **befriend** | to-infinitive | I *not said here* | you |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 3 | **repay** | present | you |  | me |  |  |  | vn equip-13.4.2-1 «NP V NP.recipient»: agent=Agent i=Recipient |
| 4 | **try** | gerund | you *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn try-61.1 «NP V S\_INF»: agent=Agent clause=Eventuality |
| 5 | **kill** *not said to happen* | to-infinitive | you *not said here* | me |  |  |  |  | vn remove-10.1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent i=Theme |

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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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