---
title: "Say what you will; if I were not Alexander, I would like to be Diog… — Fifty Famous Stories Retold · tree and pragmatics
description: "Say what you will; if I were not Alexander, I would like to be Diogenes." Who acts: you, Diogenes. A sentence of «Fifty Famous Stories Retold» by James Baldwin, Diogenes the Wise Man., with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Fifty Famous Stories Retold, Diogenes the Wise Man., sentence 24

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"Say what you will; if I were not Alexander, I would like to be Diogenes."

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**Who acts:** you, Diogenes · **What happens:** say, not be, like, be · **To what, where:** Alexander, Diogenes · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «Fifty Famous Stories Retold» by James Baldwin, Diogenes the Wise Man.. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (you, Diogenes), 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:pg18442:38:24
# text = "Say what you will; if I were not Alexander, I would like to be Diogenes."
1	"	"	PUNCT	``	_	2	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	Say	say	VERB	VB	Mood=Imp|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	what	what	PRON	WP	PronType=Int	2	obj	_	_
4	you	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Person=2|PronType=Prs	5	nsubj	_	_
5	will	will	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	3	acl:relcl	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	;	;	PUNCT	,	_	11	punct	_	_
7	if	if	SCONJ	IN	_	11	mark	_	_
8	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	11	nsubj	_	_
9	were	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	11	cop	_	_
10	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	11	advmod	_	_
11	Alexander	Alexander	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	2	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	15	punct	_	_
13	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	15	nsubj	_	_
14	would	would	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	15	aux	_	_
15	like	like	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	2	conj	_	_
16	to	to	PART	TO	_	18	mark	_	_
17	be	be	AUX	VB	VerbForm=Inf	18	cop	_	_
18	Diogenes	Diogenes	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	15	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
19	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	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* *in a quote* | imperative | you *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V NP.topic»: agent=Agent what=Topic |
| 2 | **not** **is a** *a condition, not said to happen, in a quote* | past | Diogenes | Alexander |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 3 | **like** *in a quote* | would | Diogenes |  |  |  |  |  | vn want-32.1-1-1 «NP V NP S\_INF»: agent=Pivot |
| 4 | **is a** *in a quote* | to-infinitive |  | Diogenes |  |  |  |  | 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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