---
title: It is your bell; but it must never be rung except in case of need. — Fifty Famous Stories Retold · tree and pragmatics
description: It is your bell; but it must never be rung except in case of need. Who acts: foot, bell. A sentence of «Fifty Famous Stories Retold» by James Baldwin, The Bell of Atri., with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Fifty Famous Stories Retold, The Bell of Atri., sentence 17

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It is your bell; but it must never be rung except in case of need.

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**Who acts:** foot, bell · **What happens:** be, not ring · **To what, where:** bell, foot

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This is a sentence of «Fifty Famous Stories Retold» by James Baldwin, The Bell of Atri.. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (foot, bell), 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:pg18442:25:17
# text = It is your bell; but it must never be rung except in case of need.
1	It	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	4	nsubj	_	_
2	is	be	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	4	cop	_	_
3	your	your	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Person=2|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	4	nmod:poss	_	_
4	bell	bell	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
5	;	;	PUNCT	:	_	11	punct	_	_
6	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	11	cc	_	_
7	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	11	nsubj:pass	_	_
8	must	must	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	11	aux	_	_
9	never	never	ADV	RB	PronType=Neg	11	advmod	_	_
10	be	be	AUX	VB	VerbForm=Inf	11	aux:pass	_	_
11	rung	ring	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	4	acl:relcl	_	_
12	except	except	ADP	IN	_	14	case	_	_
13	in	in	ADP	IN	_	14	case	_	_
14	case	case	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	11	obl	_	_
15	of	of	ADP	IN	_	16	case	_	_
16	need	need	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	14	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is a** | present | foot | your bell |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **not** **ring** | must · passive | your bell *not said here* | foot |  |  |  | except case of need | vn sound\_emission-43.2 «PP.location V NP»: subject=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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