---
title: "Why did you spare the life of the Swede after he had tried to kill… — Fifty Famous Stories Retold · tree and pragmatics
description: "Why did you spare the life of the Swede after he had tried to kill you?" asked the king. Who acts: you, King. 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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# Fifty Famous Stories Retold, The Ungrateful Soldier., sentence 22

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"Why did you spare the life of the Swede after he had tried to kill you?" asked the king.

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**Who acts:** you, King · **What happens:** spare, try, kill, ask · **To what, where:** life, you · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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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 (you, King), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

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**Checked tree.** This sentence is in the tales treebank of Mova corpus 0.3 (`gutenberg:pg18442:491`): parsed by Mova, then checked and patched by a teacher model under UD validation gates — Mova annot: Rust (en) → Claude Opus (medium) patches; gates UD 2.18.

## The tree {#tree}

```conllu
# sent_id = book:pg18442:18:22
# text = "Why did you spare the life of the Swede after he had tried to kill you?" asked the king.
1	"	"	PUNCT	``	_	5	punct	_	_
2	Why	why	ADV	WRB	PronType=Int	5	advmod	_	_
3	did	do	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=2|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	5	aux	_	_
4	you	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Person=2|PronType=Prs	5	nsubj	_	_
5	spare	spare	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	20	ccomp	_	_
6	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	7	det	_	_
7	life	life	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	obj	_	_
8	of	of	ADP	IN	_	10	case	_	_
9	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	10	det	_	_
10	Swede	swede	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	nmod	_	_
11	after	after	SCONJ	IN	_	14	mark	_	_
12	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	14	nsubj	_	_
13	had	have	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	14	aux	_	_
14	tried	try	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part	5	advcl	_	_
15	to	to	PART	TO	_	16	mark	_	_
16	kill	kill	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	14	xcomp	_	_
17	you	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Person=2|PronType=Prs	16	obj	_	_
18	?	?	PUNCT	.	_	5	punct	_	_
19	"	"	PUNCT	''	_	5	punct	_	_
20	asked	ask	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
21	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	22	det	_	_
22	king	king	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	20	nsubj	_	_
23	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	20	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **spare** *in a quote* | past · do-support | you | the life of the Swede |  |  |  |  | vn bill-54.5 «NP V NP NP.asset»: agent=Agent life=Asset |
| 2 | **try** *in a quote* | past · perfect | King |  |  |  |  |  | vn try-61.1 «NP V S\_INF»: agent=Agent clause=Eventuality |
| 3 | **kill** *not said to happen, in a quote* | to-infinitive | King *not said here* | you |  |  |  |  | vn remove-10.1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent you=Theme |
| 4 | **ask** *speech: ask* | past | the king |  |  |  |  |  | vn inquire-37.1.2 «NP V how S»: agent=Agent clause=Topic |

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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:** the tales treebank of Mova corpus 0.3, Apache-2.0 OR MIT. **Frames:** Mova's frames reader (`prag`), the chapter read in order.

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