---
title: The men with the clubs could not strike, for they did not want to hu… — Fifty Famous Stories Retold · tree and pragmatics
description: The men with the clubs could not strike, for they did not want to hurt the child. Who acts: men, clubs. A sentence of «Fifty Famous Stories Retold» by James Baldwin, Sir Walter Raleigh., with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Fifty Famous Stories Retold, Sir Walter Raleigh., sentence 73

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The men with the clubs could not strike, for they did not want to hurt the child.

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**Who acts:** men, clubs · **What happens:** not strike, not want, hurt · **To what, where:** child

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This is a sentence of «Fifty Famous Stories Retold» by James Baldwin, Sir Walter Raleigh.. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (men, clubs), 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:pg18442:20:73
# text = The men with the clubs could not strike, for they did not want to hurt the child.
1	The	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	2	det	_	_
2	men	man	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	8	nsubj	_	_
3	with	with	ADP	IN	_	5	case	_	_
4	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	5	det	_	_
5	clubs	club	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	2	nmod	_	_
6	could	could	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	8	aux	_	_
7	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	8	advmod	_	_
8	strike	strike	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	14	punct	_	_
10	for	for	SCONJ	IN	_	14	mark	_	_
11	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	14	nsubj	_	_
12	did	do	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	14	aux	_	_
13	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	14	advmod	_	_
14	want	want	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	8	parataxis	_	_
15	to	to	PART	TO	_	16	mark	_	_
16	hurt	hurt	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	14	xcomp	_	_
17	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	18	det	_	_
18	child	child	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	16	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
19	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	8	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **not** **strike** | could | the men with the clubs |  |  |  |  |  | vn sound\_emission-43.2 «NP.location V PP.theme»: agent=Location |
| 2 | **not** **want** | past · do-support | clubs *= club* |  |  |  |  |  | vn want-32.1-1-1 «NP V NP S\_INF»: agent=Pivot clause=Theme |
| 3 | **hurt** *not said to happen* | to-infinitive | clubs *= club* *not said here* | the child |  |  |  |  | vn hurt-40.8.3-2 «NP V NP»: agent=Experiencer child=Patient |

<!-- .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.

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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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