---
title: "Because, sir," said the soldier, "I could never kill a wounded enem… — Fifty Famous Stories Retold · tree and pragmatics
description: "Because, sir," said the soldier, "I could never kill a wounded enemy." Who acts: soldier. 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 23

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"Because, sir," said the soldier, "I could never kill a wounded enemy."

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**Who acts:** soldier · **What happens:** say, not kill · **To what, where:** wounded enemy · **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 (soldier), 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:pg18442:18:23
# text = "Because, sir," said the soldier, "I could never kill a wounded enemy."
1	"	"	PUNCT	``	_	15	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	Because	because	SCONJ	IN	_	7	mark	_	SpaceAfter=No
3	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	4	punct	_	_
4	sir	sir	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	ccomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
5	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	4	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	"	"	PUNCT	''	_	4	punct	_	_
7	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	15	advcl	_	_
8	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	9	det	_	_
9	soldier	soldier	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	7	punct	_	_
11	"	"	PUNCT	``	_	15	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	15	nsubj	_	_
13	could	could	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	15	aux	_	_
14	never	never	ADV	RB	PronType=Neg	15	advmod	_	_
15	kill	kill	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	0	root	_	_
16	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	18	det	_	_
17	wounded	wounded	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	18	amod	_	_
18	enemy	enemy	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	15	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
19	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	15	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
20	"	"	PUNCT	''	_	15	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **say** *speech: assert* | past | the soldier |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent |
| 2 | **not** **kill** *in a quote* | could | the soldier *= soldier* | a wounded enemy |  |  |  |  | vn remove-10.1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent enemy=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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