---
title: "How can I know that you will keep your promise?" he said. " — Fifty Famous Stories Retold · tree and pragmatics
description: "How can I know that you will keep your promise?" he said. " Who acts: man, you, your. A sentence of «Fifty Famous Stories Retold» by James Baldwin, Damon and Pythias., 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/pg18442/34/6/)

<!-- 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/) / [Damon and Pythias.](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg18442/34/) / 6

# Fifty Famous Stories Retold, Damon and Pythias., sentence 6

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
"How can I know that you will keep your promise?" he said. "

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** man, you, your · **What happens:** know, keep, say, promise · **To what, where:** promise · **Speech:** someone speaks here

<!-- .vabout -->
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 (man, you, your), 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:pg18442:34:6
# text = "How can I know that you will keep your promise?" he said. "
1	"	"	PUNCT	``	_	5	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	How	how	ADV	WRB	PronType=Int	5	advmod	_	_
3	can	can	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	5	aux	_	_
4	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	5	nsubj	_	_
5	know	know	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	15	ccomp	_	_
6	that	that	SCONJ	IN	_	9	mark	_	_
7	you	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Person=2|PronType=Prs	9	nsubj	_	_
8	will	will	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	9	aux	_	_
9	keep	keep	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	5	advcl	_	_
10	your	your	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Person=2|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	11	nmod:poss	_	_
11	promise	promise	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	9	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	?	?	PUNCT	.	_	5	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	"	"	PUNCT	''	_	5	punct	_	_
14	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	15	nsubj	_	_
15	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	15	punct	_	_
17	"	"	PUNCT	''	_	15	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **know** *in a quote* | can | man |  |  |  |  |  | vn comprehend-87.2-1-1-1 «NP V»: agent=Experiencer |
| 2 | **keep** *in a quote* | future | you | your promise |  |  |  |  | vn keep-15.2 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent promise=Theme |
| 3 | **say** *speech: ask* | past | man |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent clause=Topic |
| 4 | **promise** *in a quote* |  | your |  |  |  |  |  | nom promise «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 5](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg18442/34/5/)
- next →: [sentence 7](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg18442/34/7/)
- ↑ back to [Damon and Pythias.](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg18442/34/)