---
title: He was not sick, but in distress; and, as for eating, there was no f… — Fifty Famous Stories Retold · tree and pragmatics
description: He was not sick, but in distress; and, as for eating, there was no food in the house. Who acts: man, food. A sentence of «Fifty Famous Stories Retold» by James Baldwin, Doctor Goldsmith., with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Fifty Famous Stories Retold, Doctor Goldsmith., sentence 11

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He was not sick, but in distress; and, as for eating, there was no food in the house.

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**Who acts:** man, food · **What happens:** not be, eat, be

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This is a sentence of «Fifty Famous Stories Retold» by James Baldwin, Doctor Goldsmith.. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (man, food), 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:pg18442:42:11
# text = He was not sick, but in distress; and, as for eating, there was no food in the house.
1	He	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|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	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	4	advmod	_	_
4	sick	sick	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
5	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	8	punct	_	_
6	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	8	cc	_	_
7	in	in	ADP	IN	_	8	case	_	_
8	distress	distress	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	;	;	PUNCT	:	_	14	punct	_	_
10	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	14	cc	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	10	punct	_	_
12	as	as	SCONJ	IN	_	14	mark	_	_
13	for	for	SCONJ	IN	_	14	mark	_	_
14	eating	eat	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	4	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	17	punct	_	_
16	there	there	PRON	EX	PronType=Dem	17	expl	_	_
17	was	be	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	4	parataxis	_	_
18	no	no	DET	DT	PronType=Neg	19	det	_	_
19	food	food	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	17	nsubj	_	_
20	in	in	ADP	IN	_	22	case	_	_
21	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	22	det	_	_
22	house	house	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	19	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
23	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **not** **is** | past | man |  |  |  |  | sick *property* | tree rules |
| 2 | **eat** | gerund | man *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn eat-39.1-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 3 | **be** | past | no food in the house |  |  | there |  |  | vn exist-47.1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |

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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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