---
title: "What is the use of keeping that lazy steed?" said the miser to hims… — Fifty Famous Stories Retold · tree and pragmatics
description: "What is the use of keeping that lazy steed?" said the miser to himself one morning. " Who acts: use, miser. 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 45

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"What is the use of keeping that lazy steed?" said the miser to himself one morning. "

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**Who acts:** use, miser · **What happens:** be, keep, say · **To what, where:** use · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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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 (use, miser), 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:pg18442:25:45
# text = "What is the use of keeping that lazy steed?" said the miser to himself one morning. "
1	"	"	PUNCT	``	_	5	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	What	what	PRON	WP	PronType=Int	5	nsubj	_	_
3	is	be	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	5	cop	_	_
4	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	5	det	_	_
5	use	use	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	0	root	_	_
6	of	of	SCONJ	IN	_	7	mark	_	_
7	keeping	keep	VERB	VBG	VerbForm=Ger	5	acl	_	_
8	that	that	SCONJ	IN	_	13	mark	_	_
9	lazy	lazy	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	10	amod	_	_
10	steed	steed	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	13	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	?	?	PUNCT	.	_	10	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	"	"	PUNCT	''	_	10	punct	_	_
13	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	7	advcl	_	_
14	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	15	det	_	_
15	miser	miser	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	13	nsubj	_	_
16	to	to	ADP	IN	_	17	case	_	_
17	himself	himself	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs|Reflex=Yes	15	nmod	_	_
18	one	one	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	19	nummod	_	_
19	morning	morning	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	15	obl:unmarked	_	SpaceAfter=No
20	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	5	punct	_	_
21	"	"	PUNCT	''	_	5	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is a** *in a quote* | present |  | the use |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **keep** *in a quote* | gerund | the use *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn keep-15.2 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent |
| 3 | **say** *speech: ask* | past | the miser to miser |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: 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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