---
title: Every man had to save himself in the best way he could. — Fifty Famous Stories Retold · tree and pragmatics
description: Every man had to save himself in the best way he could. Who acts: man. A sentence of «Fifty Famous Stories Retold» by James Baldwin, King Alfred and the Cakes., with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Fifty Famous Stories Retold, King Alfred and the Cakes., sentence 10

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Every man had to save himself in the best way he could.

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**Who acts:** man · **What happens:** have, save · **To what, where:** man, best way

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This is a sentence of «Fifty Famous Stories Retold» by James Baldwin, King Alfred and the Cakes.. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (man), 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:pg18442:3:10
# text = Every man had to save himself in the best way he could.
1	Every	every	DET	DT	PronType=Tot	2	det	_	_
2	man	man	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	nsubj	_	_
3	had	have	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
4	to	to	PART	TO	_	5	mark	_	_
5	save	save	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	3	xcomp	_	_
6	himself	himself	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs|Reflex=Yes	5	obj	_	_
7	in	in	ADP	IN	_	10	case	_	_
8	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	10	det	_	_
9	best	good	ADJ	JJS	Degree=Sup	10	amod	_	_
10	way	way	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	obl	_	_
11	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	12	nsubj	_	_
12	could	could	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	10	acl:relcl	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **have** | past | every man |  |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **save** | to-infinitive | every man *not said here* | man |  | the best way |  |  | vn get-13.5.1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent himself=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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