---
title: He knew that almost everybody hated him, and so he was always in dre… — Fifty Famous Stories Retold · tree and pragmatics
description: He knew that almost everybody hated him, and so he was always in dread lest some one should take his life. Who acts: king, everybody, one. 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 3

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He knew that almost everybody hated him, and so he was always in dread lest some one should take his life.

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**Who acts:** king, everybody, one · **What happens:** know, hate, be, take · **To what, where:** king, dread, life

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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 (king, everybody, one), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

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**Checked tree.** This sentence is in the tales treebank of Mova corpus 0.3 (`gutenberg:pg18442:1008`): parsed by Mova, then checked and patched by a teacher model under UD validation gates — Mova annot: Rust (en) → Claude Opus (medium) patches; gates UD 2.18.

## The tree {#tree}

```conllu
# sent_id = book:pg18442:33:3
# text = He knew that almost everybody hated him, and so he was always in dread lest some one should take his life.
1	He	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	2	nsubj	_	_
2	knew	know	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	that	that	SCONJ	IN	_	6	mark	_	_
4	almost	almost	ADV	RB	_	5	advmod	_	_
5	everybody	everybody	PRON	NN	Number=Sing|PronType=Tot	6	nsubj	_	_
6	hated	hate	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	2	ccomp	_	_
7	him	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	6	obj	_	_
8	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	15	punct	_	_
9	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	15	cc	_	_
10	so	so	ADV	RB	_	15	advmod	_	_
11	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	15	nsubj	_	_
12	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	15	cop	_	_
13	always	always	ADV	RB	PronType=Tot	15	advmod	_	_
14	in	in	ADP	IN	_	15	case	_	_
15	dread	dread	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	2	conj	_	_
16	lest	lest	SCONJ	IN	_	20	mark	_	_
17	some	some	DET	DT	PronType=Ind	18	det	_	_
18	one	one	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	20	nsubj	_	_
19	should	should	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	20	aux	_	_
20	take	take	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	15	advcl	_	_
21	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	22	nmod:poss	_	_
22	life	life	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	20	obj	_	_
23	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **know** | past | king |  |  |  |  |  | vn comprehend-87.2-1-1-1 «NP V S\_ING»: agent=Experiencer clause=Stimulus |
| 2 | **hate** | past | everybody | king |  |  |  |  | vn admire-31.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Experiencer he=Stimulus |
| 3 | **is** | past | king |  |  | dread |  | always *property* | tree rules |
| 4 | **take** | should | some one | king's life |  |  |  |  | vn bring-11.3 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent life=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:** the tales treebank of Mova corpus 0.3, Apache-2.0 OR MIT. **Frames:** Mova's frames reader (`prag`), the chapter read in order.

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