---
title: What was it that was dangling above him, with its point almost touch… — Fifty Famous Stories Retold · tree and pragmatics
description: What was it that was dangling above him, with its point almost touching his head? Who acts: ceiling. A sentence of «Fifty Famous Stories Retold» by James Baldwin, The Sword of Damocles., with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Fifty Famous Stories Retold, The Sword of Damocles., sentence 18

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What was it that was dangling above him, with its point almost touching his head?

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**Who acts:** ceiling · **What happens:** dangle, touch, point · **To what, where:** head

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This is a sentence of «Fifty Famous Stories Retold» by James Baldwin, The Sword of Damocles.. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (ceiling), 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:pg18442:33:18
# text = What was it that was dangling above him, with its point almost touching his head?
1	What	what	PRON	WP	PronType=Int	6	nsubj	_	_
2	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	6	aux	_	_
3	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	6	nsubj	_	_
4	that	that	PRON	WDT	PronType=Rel	6	nsubj	_	_
5	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	6	aux	_	_
6	dangling	dangle	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	0	root	_	_
7	above	above	ADP	IN	_	8	case	_	_
8	him	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	6	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	12	punct	_	_
10	with	with	ADP	IN	_	12	case	_	_
11	its	its	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	12	nmod:poss	_	_
12	point	point	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	obl	_	_
13	almost	almost	ADV	RB	_	14	advmod	_	_
14	touching	touch	VERB	VBG	VerbForm=Ger	12	nmod	_	_
15	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	16	nmod:poss	_	_
16	head	head	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	14	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	?	?	PUNCT	.	_	6	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **dangle** | past · progressive |  |  |  |  |  | above Damocles; with ceiling's point | vn spatial\_configuration-47.6-1 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Theme above he=Location |
| 2 | **touch** | gerund |  | Damocles's head |  |  |  | almost *property* | vn contiguous\_location-47.8-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Theme head=Co-Theme |
| 3 | **point** |  | ceiling |  |  |  |  |  | nom point «cognition transitive»: poss=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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