---
title: His wife and little children wept, and his sons begged him not to le… — Fifty Famous Stories Retold · tree and pragmatics
description: His wife and little children wept, and his sons begged him not to leave them again. Who acts: wife, sons. A sentence of «Fifty Famous Stories Retold» by James Baldwin, The Story of Regulus., with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Fifty Famous Stories Retold, The Story of Regulus., sentence 36

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His wife and little children wept, and his sons begged him not to leave them again.

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**Who acts:** wife, sons · **What happens:** weep, beg, not leave · **To what, where:** Carthage, sons · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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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 (wife, sons), 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:pg18442:28:36
# text = His wife and little children wept, and his sons begged him not to leave them again.
1	His	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	2	nmod:poss	_	_
2	wife	wife	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	nsubj	_	_
3	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	5	cc	_	_
4	little	little	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	5	amod	_	_
5	children	child	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	2	conj	_	_
6	wept	weep	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	11	punct	_	_
8	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	11	cc	_	_
9	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	10	nmod:poss	_	_
10	sons	son	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	11	nsubj	_	_
11	begged	beg	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	6	conj	_	_
12	him	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	11	obj	_	_
13	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	15	advmod	_	_
14	to	to	PART	TO	_	15	mark	_	_
15	leave	leave	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	11	ccomp	_	_
16	them	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	15	obj	_	_
17	again	again	ADV	RB	_	15	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
18	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	6	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **weep** | past | Carthage's wife and little children |  |  |  |  |  | vn breathe-40.1.2 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 2 | **beg** *speech: request* | past | Carthage's sons |  | Carthage |  |  |  | vn beg-58.2-1-1 «NP V NP S\_INF»: agent=Agent he=Recipient clause=Topic |
| 3 | **not** **leave** *not said to happen* | to-infinitive |  | sons *= son* |  |  | again |  | vn keep-15.2 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent they=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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