---
title: The boy said, "I would like to go; but I can't leave the geese. — Fifty Famous Stories Retold · tree and pragmatics
description: The boy said, "I would like to go; but I can't leave the geese. Who acts: boy. A sentence of «Fifty Famous Stories Retold» by James Baldwin, Maximilian and the Goose Boy., with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Fifty Famous Stories Retold, Maximilian and the Goose Boy., sentence 37

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The boy said, "I would like to go; but I can't leave the geese.

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**Who acts:** boy · **What happens:** say, like, go, not leave · **To what, where:** geese · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «Fifty Famous Stories Retold» by James Baldwin, Maximilian and the Goose Boy.. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (boy), 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:pg18442:47:37
# text = The boy said, "I would like to go; but I can't leave the geese.
1	The	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	2	det	_	_
2	boy	boy	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	nsubj	_	_
3	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
4	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	8	punct	_	_
5	"	"	PUNCT	``	_	8	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	8	nsubj	_	_
7	would	would	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	8	aux	_	_
8	like	like	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	3	ccomp	_	_
9	to	to	PART	TO	_	10	mark	_	_
10	go	go	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	8	xcomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	;	;	PUNCT	,	_	16	punct	_	_
12	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	16	cc	_	_
13	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	16	nsubj	_	_
14	ca	can	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	16	aux	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	n't	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	16	advmod	_	_
16	leave	leave	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	3	conj	_	_
17	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	18	det	_	_
18	geese	goose	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	16	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
19	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **say** *speech: assert* | past | the boy |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent clause=Topic |
| 2 | **like** *in a quote* | would | the boy *= boy* |  |  |  |  |  | vn want-32.1-1-1 «NP V NP S\_INF»: agent=Pivot clause=Theme |
| 3 | **go** *not said to happen, in a quote* | to-infinitive | the boy *= boy* *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn disappearance-48.2-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 4 | **not** **leave** *in a quote* | can | the boy *= boy* | the geese |  |  |  |  | vn keep-15.2 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent goose=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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