---
title: "Ah!" whis-pered the younger; "if our mother could only have such be… — Fifty Famous Stories Retold · tree and pragmatics
description: "Ah!" whis-pered the younger; "if our mother could only have such beautiful things!" Who acts: mother. A sentence of «Fifty Famous Stories Retold» by James Baldwin, Cornelia's Jewels., with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Fifty Famous Stories Retold, Cornelia's Jewels., sentence 26

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"Ah!" whis-pered the younger; "if our mother could only have such beautiful things!"

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**Who acts:** mother · **What happens:** per, have · **To what, where:** such beautiful things

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This is a sentence of «Fifty Famous Stories Retold» by James Baldwin, Cornelia's Jewels.. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (mother), 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:pg18442:29:26
# text = "Ah!" whis-pered the younger; "if our mother could only have such beautiful things!"
1	"	"	PUNCT	``	_	7	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	Ah	ah	INTJ	UH	_	7	discourse	_	SpaceAfter=No
3	!	!	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
4	"	"	PUNCT	''	_	2	punct	_	_
5	whis	whis	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	compound	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	5	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	pered	per	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	0	root	_	_
8	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	9	det	_	_
9	younger	young	ADJ	JJR	Degree=Cmp	7	obl:agent	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	;	;	PUNCT	,	_	7	punct	_	_
11	"	"	PUNCT	``	_	17	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	if	if	SCONJ	IN	_	17	mark	_	_
13	our	our	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Plur|Person=1|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	14	nmod:poss	_	_
14	mother	mother	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	17	nsubj	_	_
15	could	could	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	17	aux	_	_
16	only	only	ADV	RB	_	17	advmod	_	_
17	have	have	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	7	parataxis	_	_
18	such	such	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	20	amod	_	_
19	beautiful	beautiful	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	20	amod	_	_
20	things	thing	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	17	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
21	!	!	PUNCT	.	_	17	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
22	"	"	PUNCT	''	_	17	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **per** | participle |  |  |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **have** *a condition, not said to happen, in a quote* | could | our mother | such beautiful things |  |  |  |  | vn birth-28.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent thing=Patient |

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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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