---
title: He was a noble an-i-mal, and the king paid a very high price for him. — Fifty Famous Stories Retold · tree and pragmatics
description: He was a noble an-i-mal, and the king paid a very high price for him. Who acts: King, i. A sentence of «Fifty Famous Stories Retold» by James Baldwin, Alexander and Bucephalus., with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Fifty Famous Stories Retold, Alexander and Bucephalus., sentence 2

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He was a noble an-i-mal, and the king paid a very high price for him.

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**Who acts:** King, i · **What happens:** be, mal, pay · **To what, where:** high price

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This is a sentence of «Fifty Famous Stories Retold» by James Baldwin, Alexander and Bucephalus.. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (King, i), 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:pg18442:37:2
# text = He was a noble an-i-mal, and the king paid a very high price for him.
1	He	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	4	nsubj	_	_
2	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	4	cop	_	_
3	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	4	det	_	_
4	noble	noble	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	0	root	_	_
5	an	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	7	det	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	5	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	i	i	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	9	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	7	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	mal	mal	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	4	ccomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	14	punct	_	_
11	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	14	cc	_	_
12	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	13	det	_	_
13	king	king	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	14	nsubj	_	_
14	paid	pay	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	4	conj	_	_
15	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	18	det	_	_
16	very	very	ADV	RB	_	17	advmod	_	_
17	high	high	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	18	amod	_	_
18	price	price	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	14	obj	_	_
19	for	for	ADP	IN	_	20	case	_	_
20	him	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	14	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
21	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is** | past | King |  |  |  |  | noble *property* | tree rules |
| 2 | **mal** | infinitive | a i |  |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 3 | **pay** | past | the king | a high price |  |  |  | for horse | vn pay-68-1 «NP V NP PP.theme»: agent=Agent price=Asset for he=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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