---
title: It was hard work, and the higher he climbed, the thirst-i-er he beca… — Fifty Famous Stories Retold · tree and pragmatics
description: It was hard work, and the higher he climbed, the thirst-i-er he became. Who acts: bank, Genghis, thirst. 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 60

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It was hard work, and the higher he climbed, the thirst-i-er he became.

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**Who acts:** bank, Genghis, thirst · **What happens:** be, climb, er, become · **To what, where:** hard work, i er

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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 (bank, Genghis, thirst), 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:pg18442:41:60
# text = It was hard work, and the higher he climbed, the thirst-i-er he became.
1	It	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|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	hard	hard	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	4	amod	_	_
4	work	work	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
5	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	8	punct	_	_
6	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	8	cc	_	_
7	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	8	det	_	_
8	higher	high	ADJ	JJR	Degree=Cmp	4	acl:relcl	_	_
9	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	10	nsubj	_	_
10	climbed	climb	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	8	advcl	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	17	punct	_	_
12	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	17	det	_	_
13	thirst	thirst	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	17	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	13	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	i	i	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	17	compound	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	17	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	er	er	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	conj	_	_
18	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	19	nsubj	_	_
19	became	become	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	17	acl:relcl	_	SpaceAfter=No
20	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is a** | past | bank | hard work and the i er |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **climb** | past | Genghis |  |  |  |  |  | vn run-51.3.2 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 3 | **er** |  | thirst |  |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 4 | **become** | past | Genghis | the i er *not said here* |  |  |  |  | vn become-109.1-1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Patient er=Result |

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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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