---
title: In a few days, an answer was brought back to him. — Fifty Famous Stories Retold · tree and pragmatics
description: In a few days, an answer was brought back to him. A sentence of «Fifty Famous Stories Retold» by James Baldwin, A Laconic Answer., with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Fifty Famous Stories Retold, A Laconic Answer., sentence 11

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In a few days, an answer was brought back to him.

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**What happens:** bring back · **To what, where:** answer, Philip

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This is a sentence of «Fifty Famous Stories Retold» by James Baldwin, A Laconic Answer.. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: 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:pg18442:35:11
# text = In a few days, an answer was brought back to him.
1	In	in	ADP	IN	_	4	case	_	_
2	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	4	det	_	_
3	few	few	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	4	amod	_	_
4	days	day	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	9	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
5	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	4	punct	_	_
6	an	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	7	det	_	_
7	answer	answer	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	9	nsubj:pass	_	_
8	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	9	aux:pass	_	_
9	brought	bring	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	0	root	_	_
10	back	back	ADV	RB	_	9	advmod	_	_
11	to	to	ADP	IN	_	12	case	_	_
12	him	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	9	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	9	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **bring back** | past · passive |  | a answer | Philip |  | day |  | vn bring-11.3-1 «NP V NP PP.destination»: subject=Theme to he=Destination |

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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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