---
title: "We must break their lines," cried their leader; "for we cannot harm… — Fifty Famous Stories Retold · tree and pragmatics
description: "We must break their lines," cried their leader; "for we cannot harm them while they keep together." Who acts: We, leader, foes. A sentence of «Fifty Famous Stories Retold» by James Baldwin, Arnold Winkelried., with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Fifty Famous Stories Retold, Arnold Winkelried., sentence 12

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"We must break their lines," cried their leader; "for we cannot harm them while they keep together."

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**Who acts:** We, leader, foes · **What happens:** break, cry, not harm, keep together · **To what, where:** lines, foes · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «Fifty Famous Stories Retold» by James Baldwin, Arnold Winkelried.. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (We, leader, foes), 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:pg18442:24:12
# text = "We must break their lines," cried their leader; "for we cannot harm them while they keep together."
1	"	"	PUNCT	``	_	4	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	We	we	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=1|PronType=Prs	4	nsubj	_	_
3	must	must	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	4	aux	_	_
4	break	break	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	0	root	_	_
5	their	their	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Plur|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	6	nmod:poss	_	_
6	lines	line	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	4	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	4	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	"	"	PUNCT	''	_	4	punct	_	_
9	cried	cry	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	4	conj	_	_
10	their	their	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Plur|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	11	nmod:poss	_	_
11	leader	leader	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	9	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	;	;	PUNCT	,	_	18	punct	_	_
13	"	"	PUNCT	``	_	18	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	for	for	SCONJ	IN	_	18	mark	_	_
15	we	we	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=1|PronType=Prs	18	nsubj	_	_
16	can	can	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	18	aux	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	18	advmod	_	_
18	harm	harm	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	4	conj	_	_
19	them	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	18	obj	_	_
20	while	while	SCONJ	IN	_	22	mark	_	_
21	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	22	nsubj	_	_
22	keep	keep	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	18	advcl	_	_
23	together	together	ADV	RB	_	22	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
24	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
25	"	"	PUNCT	''	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **break** *in a quote* | must | We | foes's lines |  |  |  |  | vn hurt-40.8.3-1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Experiencer line=Patient |
| 2 | **cry** *speech: express* | past | foes's leader |  |  |  |  |  | vn manner\_speaking-37.3 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 3 | **not** **harm** *in a quote* | can | we | foes *= foe* |  |  |  |  | vn amuse-31.1 «NP V NP»: agent=Stimulus they=Experiencer |
| 4 | **keep together** *in a quote* | present | foes *= foe* |  |  |  |  | together *property* | vn keep-15.2 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent |

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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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- ↑ back to [Arnold Winkelried.](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg18442/24/)