---
title: I do not know whether he had any-thing to eat that night, or whether… — Fifty Famous Stories Retold · tree and pragmatics
description: I do not know whether he had any-thing to eat that night, or whether he had to go to bed without his supper. Who acts: I, 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.
---

<!-- md -->
[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg18442/3/32/)

<!-- 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/) / [King Alfred and the Cakes.](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg18442/3/) / 32

# Fifty Famous Stories Retold, King Alfred and the Cakes., sentence 32

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
I do not know whether he had any-thing to eat that night, or whether he had to go to bed without his supper.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** I, king · **What happens:** not know, have, eat, go · **To what, where:** thing, bed · **Speech:** someone speaks here

<!-- .vabout -->
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 (I, king), 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:pg18442:3:32
# text = I do not know whether he had any-thing to eat that night, or whether he had to go to bed without his supper.
1	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	4	nsubj	_	_
2	do	do	AUX	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	4	aux	_	_
3	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	4	advmod	_	_
4	know	know	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	0	root	_	_
5	whether	whether	SCONJ	IN	_	7	mark	_	_
6	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	7	nsubj	_	_
7	had	have	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	4	ccomp	_	_
8	any	any	DET	DT	PronType=Ind	10	det	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	8	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	thing	thing	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	obj	_	_
11	to	to	PART	TO	_	12	mark	_	_
12	eat	eat	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	10	acl	_	_
13	that	that	DET	DT	Number=Sing|PronType=Dem	14	det	_	_
14	night	night	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	12	obl:unmarked	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	19	punct	_	_
16	or	or	CCONJ	CC	_	19	cc	_	_
17	whether	whether	SCONJ	IN	_	19	mark	_	_
18	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	19	nsubj	_	_
19	had	have	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	7	conj	_	_
20	to	to	PART	TO	_	21	mark	_	_
21	go	go	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	19	xcomp	_	_
22	to	to	ADP	IN	_	23	case	_	_
23	bed	bed	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	21	obl	_	_
24	without	without	ADP	IN	_	26	case	_	_
25	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	26	nmod:poss	_	_
26	supper	supper	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	21	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
27	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **not** **know** | present · do-support | I |  |  |  |  |  | vn comprehend-87.2-1-1-1 «NP V how S\_INF»: agent=Experiencer clause=Stimulus |
| 2 | **have** | past | king | any thing |  |  |  |  | vn birth-28.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent thing=Patient |
| 3 | **eat** | to-infinitive | king *not said here* | any thing *not said here* |  |  | night |  | vn eat-39.1-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 4 | **have** | past | king |  |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 5 | **go** | to-infinitive | king *not said here* |  |  | bed |  | without king's supper | vn escape-51.1-1 «NP V PP.initial\_location»: agent=Theme to bed=Initial\_Location |

<!-- .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 31](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg18442/3/31/)
- next →: [sentence 33](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg18442/3/33/)
- ↑ back to [King Alfred and the Cakes.](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg18442/3/)