---
title: It was all that the girl could do to keep the frail boat from being… — Fifty Famous Stories Retold · tree and pragmatics
description: It was all that the girl could do to keep the frail boat from being drifted away, or broken upon the sharp edges of the rock. Who acts: It. A sentence of «Fifty Famous Stories Retold» by James Baldwin, Grace Darling., with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

<!-- md -->
[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg18442/22/29/)

<!-- crumbs -->
[home](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) / [corpora](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/) / [tales](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/) / [Fifty Famous Stories Retold](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg18442/) / [Grace Darling.](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg18442/22/) / 29

# Fifty Famous Stories Retold, Grace Darling., sentence 29

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
It was all that the girl could do to keep the frail boat from being drifted away, or broken upon the sharp edges of the rock.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** It · **What happens:** be, keep, drift away, break · **To what, where:** frail boat, sharp edges

<!-- .vabout -->
This is a sentence of «Fifty Famous Stories Retold» by James Baldwin, Grace Darling.. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (It), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

<!-- .note-en -->
**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:pg18442:22:29
# text = It was all that the girl could do to keep the frail boat from being drifted away, or broken upon the sharp edges of the rock.
1	It	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	8	nsubj	_	_
2	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	8	cop	_	_
3	all	all	DET	PDT	PronType=Tot	8	det:predet	_	_
4	that	that	SCONJ	IN	_	8	mark	_	_
5	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	6	det	_	_
6	girl	girl	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	8	nsubj	_	_
7	could	could	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	8	aux	_	_
8	do	do	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	0	root	_	_
9	to	to	PART	TO	_	10	mark	_	_
10	keep	keep	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	8	xcomp	_	_
11	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	13	det	_	_
12	frail	frail	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	13	amod	_	_
13	boat	boat	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	10	obj	_	_
14	from	from	SCONJ	IN	_	16	mark	_	_
15	being	be	AUX	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	16	aux:pass	_	_
16	drifted	drift	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	10	advcl	_	_
17	away	away	ADV	RB	_	16	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
18	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	20	punct	_	_
19	or	or	CCONJ	CC	_	20	cc	_	_
20	broken	break	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	16	conj	_	_
21	upon	upon	ADP	IN	_	24	case	_	_
22	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	24	det	_	_
23	sharp	sharp	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	24	amod	_	_
24	edges	edge	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	20	obl	_	_
25	of	of	ADP	IN	_	27	case	_	_
26	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	27	det	_	_
27	rock	rock	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	24	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
28	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	8	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is** | could · past | It |  |  |  |  | do *property* | tree rules |
| 2 | **keep** | to-infinitive |  | the frail boat |  |  |  |  | vn keep-15.2 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent boat=Theme |
| 3 | **drift away** | gerund · passive |  |  |  |  |  | away *property* | vn run-51.3.2-2 «NP V» |
| 4 | **break** | participle |  |  |  | the sharp edges of the rock |  |  | vn appear-48.1.1 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Theme upon edge=Location |

<!-- .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.

<!-- div src -->

**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.

<!-- /div -->

<!-- pn -->
- ← previous: [sentence 28](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg18442/22/28/)
- next →: [sentence 30](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg18442/22/30/)
- ↑ back to [Grace Darling.](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg18442/22/)