---
title: The tyrant ordered the jailer to keep close watch upon Damon, and no… — Fifty Famous Stories Retold · tree and pragmatics
description: The tyrant ordered the jailer to keep close watch upon Damon, and not let him escape. Who acts: tyrant, jailer. A sentence of «Fifty Famous Stories Retold» by James Baldwin, Damon and Pythias., with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Fifty Famous Stories Retold, Damon and Pythias., sentence 15

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The tyrant ordered the jailer to keep close watch upon Damon, and not let him escape.

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**Who acts:** tyrant, jailer · **What happens:** order, keep, not let, escape · **To what, where:** jailer, close watch, Damon, tyrant

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This is a sentence of «Fifty Famous Stories Retold» by James Baldwin, Damon and Pythias.. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (tyrant, jailer), 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:pg18442:34:15
# text = The tyrant ordered the jailer to keep close watch upon Damon, and not let him escape.
1	The	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	2	det	_	_
2	tyrant	tyrant	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	nsubj	_	_
3	ordered	order	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
4	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	5	det	_	_
5	jailer	jailer	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	obj	_	_
6	to	to	PART	TO	_	7	mark	_	_
7	keep	keep	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	3	xcomp	_	_
8	close	close	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	9	amod	_	_
9	watch	watch	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	obj	_	_
10	upon	upon	ADP	IN	_	11	case	_	_
11	Damon	Damon	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	7	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	15	punct	_	_
13	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	15	cc	_	_
14	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	15	advmod	_	_
15	let	let	VERB	VB	Mood=Imp|VerbForm=Fin	3	parataxis	_	_
16	him	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	15	obj	_	_
17	escape	escape	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	15	xcomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
18	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **order** | past | the tyrant | the jailer |  |  |  |  | vn order-58.3-1 «NP V NP S\_ING»: agent=Agent jailer=Recipient clause=Topic |
| 2 | **keep** *not said to happen* | to-infinitive | the jailer *not said here* | close watch |  | Damon |  |  | vn keep-15.2 «NP V NP PP.location»: agent=Agent watch=Theme upon damon=Location |
| 3 | **not** **let** | infinitive |  | tyrant |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 4 | **escape** | infinitive | tyrant *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn escape-51.1-1-1 «NP V»: agent=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:** Mova's own parse, Elamur Cosmic License. **Frames:** Mova's frames reader (`prag`), the chapter read in order.

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