---
title: But he was wild and savage, and no man could mount him, or do anythi… — Fifty Famous Stories Retold · tree and pragmatics
description: But he was wild and savage, and no man could mount him, or do anything at all with him. Who acts: King, man. A sentence of «Fifty Famous Stories Retold» by James Baldwin, Alexander and Bucephalus., 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/pg18442/37/3/)

<!-- 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/) / [Alexander and Bucephalus.](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg18442/37/) / 3

# Fifty Famous Stories Retold, Alexander and Bucephalus., sentence 3

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
But he was wild and savage, and no man could mount him, or do anything at all with him.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** King, man · **What happens:** be, mount, do · **To what, where:** King, anything, all

<!-- .vabout -->
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, man), 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:pg18442:37:3
# text = But he was wild and savage, and no man could mount him, or do anything at all with him.
1	But	but	CCONJ	CC	_	4	cc	_	_
2	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	4	nsubj	_	_
3	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	4	cop	_	_
4	wild	wild	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	0	root	_	_
5	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	6	cc	_	_
6	savage	savage	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	4	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	12	punct	_	_
8	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	12	cc	_	_
9	no	no	DET	DT	PronType=Neg	10	det	_	_
10	man	man	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	12	nsubj	_	_
11	could	could	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	12	aux	_	_
12	mount	mount	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	4	parataxis	_	_
13	him	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	12	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	16	punct	_	_
15	or	or	CCONJ	CC	_	16	cc	_	_
16	do	do	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	12	conj	_	_
17	anything	anything	PRON	NN	Number=Sing|PronType=Ind	16	obj	_	_
18	at	at	ADP	IN	_	19	case	_	_
19	all	all	DET	DT	PronType=Tot	17	nmod	_	_
20	with	with	ADP	IN	_	21	case	_	_
21	him	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	16	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
22	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is** | past | King |  |  |  |  | wild *property* | tree rules |
| 2 | **be** |  | King *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 3 | **mount** | could | no man | King |  |  |  |  | vn establish-55.5-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent he=Patient |
| 4 | **do** | infinitive | no man *not said here* | anything |  | all |  | with King | vn act-114-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent anything=Eventuality |

<!-- .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 2](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg18442/37/2/)
- next →: [sentence 4](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg18442/37/4/)
- ↑ back to [Alexander and Bucephalus.](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg18442/37/)

