---
title: "I am a man," he said; "but no man has ever befriended me. — Fifty Famous Stories Retold · tree and pragmatics
description: "I am a man," he said; "but no man has ever befriended me. Who acts: man. A sentence of «Fifty Famous Stories Retold» by James Baldwin, Androclus and the Lion., with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Fifty Famous Stories Retold, Androclus and the Lion., sentence 37

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"I am a man," he said; "but no man has ever befriended me.

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**Who acts:** man · **What happens:** be, say, befriend · **To what, where:** man · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «Fifty Famous Stories Retold» by James Baldwin, Androclus and the Lion.. 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:pg18442:30:37
# text = "I am a man," he said; "but no man has ever befriended me.
1	"	"	PUNCT	``	_	5	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	5	nsubj	_	_
3	am	be	AUX	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	5	cop	_	_
4	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	5	det	_	_
5	man	man	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	9	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	5	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	"	"	PUNCT	''	_	5	punct	_	_
8	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	9	nsubj	_	_
9	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	;	;	PUNCT	,	_	17	punct	_	_
11	"	"	PUNCT	``	_	17	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	17	cc	_	_
13	no	no	DET	DT	PronType=Neg	14	det	_	_
14	man	man	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	17	nsubj:pass	_	_
15	has	have	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	17	aux	_	_
16	ever	ever	ADV	RB	PronType=Ind	17	advmod	_	_
17	befriended	befriend	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	9	ccomp	_	_
18	me	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	17	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
19	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	9	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is a** *in a quote* | present | a man *= man* | a man |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **say** *speech: assert* | past | a man |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent clause=Topic |
| 3 | **befriend** *in a quote* | present · perfect · passive |  | no man |  |  | ever |  | tree rules |

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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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