---
title: "Say not a word," said the Barmecide, "but let us get ready for the… — Fifty Famous Stories Retold · tree and pragmatics
description: "Say not a word," said the Barmecide, "but let us get ready for the feast." Who acts: Barmecide, us. A sentence of «Fifty Famous Stories Retold» by James Baldwin, The Barmecide Feast., with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg18442/44/22/)

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# Fifty Famous Stories Retold, The Barmecide Feast., sentence 22

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"Say not a word," said the Barmecide, "but let us get ready for the feast."

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**Who acts:** Barmecide, us · **What happens:** not say, say, let, get · **To what, where:** word, us · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «Fifty Famous Stories Retold» by James Baldwin, The Barmecide Feast.. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Barmecide, us), 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:pg18442:44:22
# text = "Say not a word," said the Barmecide, "but let us get ready for the feast."
1	"	"	PUNCT	``	_	2	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	Say	say	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	8	ccomp	_	_
3	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	2	advmod	_	_
4	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	5	det	_	_
5	word	word	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	2	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	2	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	"	"	PUNCT	''	_	2	punct	_	_
8	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
9	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	10	det	_	_
10	Barmecide	barmecide	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	8	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	8	punct	_	_
12	"	"	PUNCT	''	_	8	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	14	cc	_	_
14	let	let	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	8	conj	_	_
15	us	we	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Plur|Person=1|PronType=Prs	14	obj	_	_
16	get	get	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	14	xcomp	_	_
17	ready	ready	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	16	xcomp	_	_
18	for	for	ADP	IN	_	20	case	_	_
19	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	20	det	_	_
20	feast	feast	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	17	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
21	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	14	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
22	"	"	PUNCT	''	_	14	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **not** **say** *speech: assert* *in a quote* | infinitive |  | a word |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V NP.topic»: agent=Agent word=Topic |
| 2 | **say** *speech: assert* | past | the Barmecide |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent clause=Topic |
| 3 | **let** *in a quote* | infinitive | the Barmecide *not said here* | us |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 4 | **get** *in a quote* | infinitive | us *not said here* |  |  |  |  | ready *property* | vn comprehend-87.2-1 «NP V S\_ING»: agent=Experiencer |

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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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