---
title: His clothing was rags, and his food was the scraps which other peopl… — Fifty Famous Stories Retold · tree and pragmatics
description: His clothing was rags, and his food was the scraps which other people had thrown away. Who acts: clothing, food. 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 5

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His clothing was rags, and his food was the scraps which other people had thrown away.

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**Who acts:** clothing, food · **What happens:** be, throw away · **To what, where:** rags, scraps

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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 (clothing, 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:pg18442:44:5
# text = His clothing was rags, and his food was the scraps which other people had thrown away.
1	His	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	2	nmod:poss	_	_
2	clothing	clothing	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	nsubj	_	_
3	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	4	cop	_	_
4	rags	rag	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
5	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	11	punct	_	_
6	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	11	cc	_	_
7	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	8	nmod:poss	_	_
8	food	food	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	11	nsubj	_	_
9	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	11	cop	_	_
10	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	11	det	_	_
11	scraps	scrap	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	4	nmod	_	_
12	which	which	PRON	WDT	PronType=Rel	16	nsubj:pass	_	_
13	other	other	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	14	amod	_	_
14	people	people	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	16	nsubj	_	_
15	had	have	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	16	aux	_	_
16	thrown	throw	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	11	acl:relcl	_	_
17	away	away	ADV	RB	_	16	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
18	.	.	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 | man's clothing | rags |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **is a** | past | man's food | the scraps |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 3 | **throw away** | past · perfect · passive |  | the scraps |  |  |  | away *property* | vn throw-17.1-1-1 «NP V NP»: subject=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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