---
title: "Why do you carry a lantern when the sun is shining?" some one said. — Fifty Famous Stories Retold · tree and pragmatics
description: "Why do you carry a lantern when the sun is shining?" some one said. Who acts: you, sun, one. 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 8

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"Why do you carry a lantern when the sun is shining?" some one said.

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**Who acts:** you, sun, one · **What happens:** carry, shine, say · **To what, where:** lantern · **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, sun, one), 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:pg18442:38:8
# text = "Why do you carry a lantern when the sun is shining?" some one said.
1	"	"	PUNCT	``	_	5	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	Why	why	ADV	WRB	PronType=Int	5	advmod	_	_
3	do	do	AUX	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=2|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	5	aux	_	_
4	you	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Person=2|PronType=Prs	5	nsubj	_	_
5	carry	carry	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	17	ccomp	_	_
6	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	7	det	_	_
7	lantern	lantern	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	obj	_	_
8	when	when	ADV	WRB	PronType=Int	12	advmod	_	_
9	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	10	det	_	_
10	sun	sun	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	12	nsubj	_	_
11	is	be	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	12	aux	_	_
12	shining	shine	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	5	advcl	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	?	?	PUNCT	.	_	5	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	"	"	PUNCT	''	_	5	punct	_	_
15	some	some	DET	DT	PronType=Ind	16	det	_	_
16	one	one	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	17	nsubj	_	_
17	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
18	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	17	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **carry** *in a quote* | present · do-support | you | a lantern |  |  |  |  | vn carry-11.4 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent lantern=Theme |
| 2 | **shine** *in a quote* | present · progressive | the sun |  |  |  |  |  | vn light\_emission-43.1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 3 | **say** *speech: ask* | past | some one |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent clause=Topic |

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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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