---
title: But before it had touched his lips, the hawk swooped down again, and… — Fifty Famous Stories Retold · tree and pragmatics
description: But before it had touched his lips, the hawk swooped down again, and knocked it from his hands. Who acts: hawk. A sentence of «Fifty Famous Stories Retold» by James Baldwin, The King and His Hawk., with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Fifty Famous Stories Retold, The King and His Hawk., sentence 43

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But before it had touched his lips, the hawk swooped down again, and knocked it from his hands.

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**Who acts:** hawk · **What happens:** touch, swoop down, knock · **To what, where:** cup

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This is a sentence of «Fifty Famous Stories Retold» by James Baldwin, The King and His Hawk.. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (hawk), 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:pg18442:41:43
# text = But before it had touched his lips, the hawk swooped down again, and knocked it from his hands.
1	But	but	CCONJ	CC	_	11	cc	_	_
2	before	before	SCONJ	IN	_	5	mark	_	_
3	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	5	nsubj:pass	_	_
4	had	have	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	5	aux	_	_
5	touched	touch	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	11	advcl	_	_
6	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	7	nmod:poss	_	_
7	lips	lip	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	5	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	5	punct	_	_
9	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	10	det	_	_
10	hawk	hawk	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	11	nsubj	_	_
11	swooped	swoop	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
12	down	down	ADP	RP	_	11	compound:prt	_	_
13	again	again	ADV	RB	_	11	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	16	punct	_	_
15	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	16	cc	_	_
16	knocked	knock	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	11	conj	_	_
17	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	16	obj	_	_
18	from	from	ADP	IN	_	20	case	_	_
19	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	20	nmod:poss	_	_
20	hands	hand	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	16	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
21	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	11	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **touch** | past · perfect · passive |  | cup |  |  |  |  | vn amuse-31.1 «NP V NP ADJ»: subject=Experiencer lip=Result |
| 2 | **swoop down** | past | the hawk |  |  |  | again |  | tree rules |
| 3 | **knock** | past | the hawk *not said here* | cup |  |  |  | from hawk's hands | vn split-23.2 «NP V NP PP.co-patient»: agent=Agent it=Patient from hand=Co-Patient |

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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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