---
title: Then the Fathers tried to persuade him to stay. — Fifty Famous Stories Retold · tree and pragmatics
description: Then the Fathers tried to persuade him to stay. Who acts: Fathers, Carthage. A sentence of «Fifty Famous Stories Retold» by James Baldwin, The Story of Regulus., 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/pg18442/28/31/)

<!-- 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/) / [The Story of Regulus.](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg18442/28/) / 31

# Fifty Famous Stories Retold, The Story of Regulus., sentence 31

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
Then the Fathers tried to persuade him to stay.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** Fathers, Carthage · **What happens:** try, persuade, stay · **To what, where:** Carthage

<!-- .vabout -->
This is a sentence of «Fifty Famous Stories Retold» by James Baldwin, The Story of Regulus.. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Fathers, Carthage), 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:pg18442:28:31
# text = Then the Fathers tried to persuade him to stay.
1	Then	then	ADV	RB	PronType=Dem	4	advmod	_	_
2	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	3	det	_	_
3	Fathers	father	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	4	nsubj	_	_
4	tried	try	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
5	to	to	PART	TO	_	6	mark	_	_
6	persuade	persuade	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	4	xcomp	_	_
7	him	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	6	obj	_	_
8	to	to	PART	TO	_	9	mark	_	_
9	stay	stay	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	6	xcomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **try** | past | the Fathers |  |  |  | then |  | vn try-61.1 «NP V S\_INF»: agent=Agent clause=Eventuality |
| 2 | **persuade** *not said to happen* | to-infinitive | the Fathers *not said here* | Carthage |  |  |  |  | vn compel-59.1-1 «NP V NP S\_INF»: agent=Agent he=Patient clause=Result |
| 3 | **stay** | to-infinitive | Carthage *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn exist-47.1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |

<!-- .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 30](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg18442/28/30/)
- next →: [sentence 32](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg18442/28/32/)
- ↑ back to [The Story of Regulus.](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg18442/28/)