---
title: He said, "If Pythias does not come back in time, it will not be his… — Fifty Famous Stories Retold · tree and pragmatics
description: He said, "If Pythias does not come back in time, it will not be his fault. Who acts: Damon, Pythias, faith. 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 18

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He said, "If Pythias does not come back in time, it will not be his fault.

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**Who acts:** Damon, Pythias, faith · **What happens:** say, not come back, not be · **To what, where:** fault · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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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 (Damon, Pythias, faith), 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:pg18442:34:18
# text = He said, "If Pythias does not come back in time, it will not be his fault.
1	He	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	2	nsubj	_	_
2	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
3	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	9	punct	_	_
4	"	"	PUNCT	``	_	9	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
5	If	if	SCONJ	IN	_	9	mark	_	_
6	Pythias	Pythias	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	9	nsubj	_	_
7	does	do	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	9	aux	_	_
8	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	9	advmod	_	_
9	come	come	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	2	ccomp	_	_
10	back	back	ADV	RB	_	9	advmod	_	_
11	in	in	ADP	IN	_	12	case	_	_
12	time	time	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	9	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	19	punct	_	_
14	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	19	nsubj	_	_
15	will	will	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	19	aux	_	_
16	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	19	advmod	_	_
17	be	be	AUX	VB	VerbForm=Inf	19	cop	_	_
18	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	19	nmod:poss	_	_
19	fault	fault	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	9	parataxis	_	SpaceAfter=No
20	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **say** *speech: assert* | past | Damon |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent clause=Topic |
| 2 | **not** **come back** *a condition, not said to happen, in a quote* | present · do-support | Pythias |  |  |  | time |  | vn escape-51.1-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 3 | **not** **is a** *in a quote* | future | faith | Damon's fault |  |  |  |  | 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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