---
title: Schacabac thought that he un-der-stood the joke, and he made pretens… — Fifty Famous Stories Retold · tree and pragmatics
description: Schacabac thought that he un-der-stood the joke, and he made pretense of taking food, and passing it to his mouth. Who acts: Schacabac, pretense. 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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# Fifty Famous Stories Retold, The Barmecide Feast., sentence 31

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Schacabac thought that he un-der-stood the joke, and he made pretense of taking food, and passing it to his mouth.

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**Who acts:** Schacabac, pretense · **What happens:** think, un-der-stoo, make, take, pass · **To what, where:** joke, pretense, food, mouth · **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 (Schacabac, pretense), 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:pg18442:44:31
# text = Schacabac thought that he un-der-stood the joke, and he made pretense of taking food, and passing it to his mouth.
1	Schacabac	Schacabac	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	2	nsubj	_	_
2	thought	think	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	that	that	SCONJ	IN	_	5	mark	_	_
4	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	5	nsubj	_	_
5	un-der-stood	un-der-stoo	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	2	ccomp	_	_
6	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	7	det	_	_
7	joke	joke	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	11	punct	_	_
9	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	11	cc	_	_
10	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	11	nsubj	_	_
11	made	make	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	2	parataxis	_	_
12	pretense	pretense	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	11	obj	_	_
13	of	of	SCONJ	IN	_	14	mark	_	_
14	taking	take	VERB	VBG	VerbForm=Ger	12	acl	_	_
15	food	food	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	14	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	18	punct	_	_
17	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	18	cc	_	_
18	passing	pass	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	11	advcl	_	_
19	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	18	obj	_	_
20	to	to	ADP	IN	_	22	case	_	_
21	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	22	nmod:poss	_	_
22	mouth	mouth	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	18	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
23	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **think** *speech: other* | past | Schacabac |  |  |  |  |  | vn consider-29.9-2 «NP V how S»: agent=Agent clause=Theme |
| 2 | **un-der-stoo** | past | Schacabac | the joke |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 3 | **make** | past | Schacabac | pretense |  |  |  |  | vn build-26.1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent pretense=Product |
| 4 | **take** | gerund | pretense *not said here* | food |  |  |  |  | vn bring-11.3 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent food=Theme |
| 5 | **pass** | gerund | Schacabac *not said here* | food | Schacabac's mouth |  |  |  | vn give-13.1 «NP V NP PP.recipient»: agent=Agent it=Theme to mouth=Recipient |

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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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