---
title: One day a friend of his, whose name was Dam'o-cles, said to him,-- — Fifty Famous Stories Retold · tree and pragmatics
description: One day a friend of his, whose name was Dam'o-cles, said to him,-- Who acts: name, One day, Dam'o cles. A sentence of «Fifty Famous Stories Retold» by James Baldwin, The Sword of Damocles., 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/pg18442/33/5/)

<!-- 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/) / [The Sword of Damocles.](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg18442/33/) / 5

# Fifty Famous Stories Retold, The Sword of Damocles., sentence 5

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
One day a friend of his, whose name was Dam'o-cles, said to him,--

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** name, One day, Dam'o cles · **What happens:** be, say, name · **To what, where:** king · **Speech:** someone speaks here

<!-- .vabout -->
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 (name, One day, Dam'o cles), 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:pg18442:33:5
# text = One day a friend of his, whose name was Dam'o-cles, said to him,--
1	One	one	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	2	nummod	_	_
2	day	day	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	15	nsubj	_	_
3	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	4	det	_	_
4	friend	friend	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	2	appos	_	_
5	of	of	ADP	IN	_	13	case	_	_
6	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	13	nmod:poss	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	13	punct	_	_
8	whose	whose	PRON	WP$	Poss=Yes|PronType=Rel	9	nmod:poss	_	_
9	name	name	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	13	nsubj	_	_
10	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	13	cop	_	_
11	Dam'o	Dam'o	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	13	compound	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	11	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	cles	cle	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	4	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	2	punct	_	_
15	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
16	to	to	ADP	IN	_	17	case	_	_
17	him	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	15	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
18	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	15	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
19	--	--	PUNCT	,	_	15	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is** | past | king's Dam'o cles's name |  |  |  |  | of king's Dam'o cles | tree rules |
| 2 | **say** *speech: assert* | past | One day |  | king |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V PP.recipient S-Quote»: agent=Agent to he=Recipient |
| 3 | **name** |  | king's Dam'o cles |  |  |  |  |  | nom name «communication transitive»: poss=agent |

<!-- .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 4](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg18442/33/4/)
- next →: [sentence 6](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg18442/33/6/)
- ↑ back to [The Sword of Damocles.](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg18442/33/)