---
title: King Alfred was very willing to watch the cakes, but he had far grea… — Fifty Famous Stories Retold · tree and pragmatics
description: King Alfred was very willing to watch the cakes, but he had far greater things to think about. Who acts: King. 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 18

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King Alfred was very willing to watch the cakes, but he had far greater things to think about.

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**Who acts:** King · **What happens:** be, watch, have, think about · **To what, where:** cakes, greater things

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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 (King), 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:pg18442:3:18
# text = King Alfred was very willing to watch the cakes, but he had far greater things to think about.
1	King	King	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	5	nsubj	_	_
2	Alfred	Alfred	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	1	flat	_	_
3	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	5	cop	_	_
4	very	very	ADV	RB	_	5	advmod	_	_
5	willing	willing	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	0	root	_	_
6	to	to	PART	TO	_	7	mark	_	_
7	watch	watch	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	5	xcomp	_	_
8	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	9	det	_	_
9	cakes	cake	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	7	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	13	punct	_	_
11	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	13	cc	_	_
12	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	13	nsubj	_	_
13	had	have	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	5	parataxis	_	_
14	far	far	ADV	RB	Degree=Pos	15	advmod	_	_
15	greater	great	ADJ	JJR	Degree=Cmp	16	amod	_	_
16	things	thing	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	13	obj	_	_
17	to	to	PART	TO	_	18	mark	_	_
18	think	think	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	16	acl	_	_
19	about	about	ADV	RB	_	18	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
20	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	5	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is** | past | King |  |  |  |  | willing *property* | tree rules |
| 2 | **watch** | to-infinitive | King *not said here* | the cakes |  |  |  |  | vn assessment-34.1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent cake=Theme |
| 3 | **have** | past | king | greater things |  |  |  |  | vn birth-28.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent thing=Patient |
| 4 | **think about** *speech: other* | to-infinitive | king *not said here* | greater things *not said here* |  |  |  | about *property* | vn focus-87.1-1 «NP V»: 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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