---
title: And no matter what the story was about, he never grew tired of heari… — Fifty Famous Stories Retold · tree and pragmatics
description: And no matter what the story was about, he never grew tired of hearing it, even though it was very long. Who acts: story, matter, work. A sentence of «Fifty Famous Stories Retold» by James Baldwin, The Endless Tale., with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Fifty Famous Stories Retold, The Endless Tale., sentence 3

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And no matter what the story was about, he never grew tired of hearing it, even though it was very long.

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**Who acts:** story, matter, work · **What happens:** be, not grow, hear · **To what, where:** work

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This is a sentence of «Fifty Famous Stories Retold» by James Baldwin, The Endless Tale.. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (story, matter, work), 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:pg18442:45:3
# text = And no matter what the story was about, he never grew tired of hearing it, even though it was very long.
1	And	and	CCONJ	CC	_	4	cc	_	_
2	no	no	DET	DT	PronType=Neg	3	det	_	_
3	matter	matter	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	nsubj	_	_
4	what	what	PRON	WP	PronType=Int	0	root	_	_
5	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	6	det	_	_
6	story	story	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	8	nsubj	_	_
7	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	8	cop	_	_
8	about	about	ADV	RB	_	4	acl:relcl	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	12	punct	_	_
10	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	12	nsubj	_	_
11	never	never	ADV	RB	PronType=Neg	12	advmod	_	_
12	grew	grow	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	4	acl:relcl	_	_
13	tired	tired	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	12	xcomp	_	_
14	of	of	SCONJ	IN	_	15	mark	_	_
15	hearing	hear	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	13	advcl	_	_
16	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	15	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	23	punct	_	_
18	even	even	ADV	RB	_	23	advmod	_	_
19	though	though	SCONJ	IN	_	23	mark	_	_
20	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	23	nsubj	_	_
21	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	23	cop	_	_
22	very	very	ADV	RB	_	23	advmod	_	_
23	long	long	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	12	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
24	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is** | past | the story |  |  |  |  | about *property* | tree rules |
| 2 | **not** **grow** | past | matter |  |  |  |  | tired *property* | vn appear-48.1.1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 3 | **hear** | gerund | matter *not said here* | work |  |  |  |  | vn see-30.1-1-1 «NP V S»: agent=Experiencer it=Stimulus |
| 4 | **is** | past | work |  |  |  |  | long *property* | tree rules |

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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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