---
title: He did his best to learn his lesson; and soon the boy again started… — Fifty Famous Stories Retold · tree and pragmatics
description: He did his best to learn his lesson; and soon the boy again started off on his errand. Who acts: king, 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.
---

<!-- md -->
[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg18442/47/55/)

<!-- crumbs -->
[home](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) / [corpora](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/) / [tales](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/) / [Fifty Famous Stories Retold](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg18442/) / [Maximilian and the Goose Boy.](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg18442/47/) / 55

# Fifty Famous Stories Retold, Maximilian and the Goose Boy., sentence 55

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
He did his best to learn his lesson; and soon the boy again started off on his errand.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** king, boy · **What happens:** do, learn, start off · **To what, where:** best, lesson, errand

<!-- .vabout -->
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 (king, boy), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

<!-- .note-en -->
**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:pg18442:47:55
# text = He did his best to learn his lesson; and soon the boy again started off on his errand.
1	He	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	2	nsubj	_	_
2	did	do	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	4	nmod:poss	_	_
4	best	good	ADJ	JJS	Degree=Sup	2	obj	_	_
5	to	to	PART	TO	_	6	mark	_	_
6	learn	learn	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	2	advcl	_	_
7	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	8	nmod:poss	_	_
8	lesson	lesson	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	;	;	PUNCT	:	_	15	punct	_	_
10	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	15	cc	_	_
11	soon	soon	ADV	RB	Degree=Pos	15	advmod	_	_
12	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	13	det	_	_
13	boy	boy	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	15	nsubj	_	_
14	again	again	ADV	RB	_	15	advmod	_	_
15	started	start	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	2	conj	_	_
16	off	off	ADP	RP	_	15	compound:prt	_	_
17	on	on	ADP	IN	_	19	case	_	_
18	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	19	nmod:poss	_	_
19	errand	errand	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	15	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
20	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **do** | past | king | king's best |  |  |  |  | vn act-114-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent good=Eventuality |
| 2 | **learn** | to-infinitive | king *not said here* | king's lesson |  |  |  |  | vn learn-14-2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent lesson=Topic |
| 3 | **start off** | past | the boy |  |  | king's errand | again | soon *property* | vn begin-55.1-1-1 «NP.eventuality V»: agent=Eventuality |

<!-- .note -->
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.

<!-- div src -->

**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.

<!-- /div -->

<!-- pn -->
- ← previous: [sentence 54](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg18442/47/54/)
- next →: [sentence 56](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg18442/47/56/)
- ↑ back to [Maximilian and the Goose Boy.](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg18442/47/)