---
title: His father and mother had died when he was only a babe, and the peop… — Fifty Famous Stories Retold · tree and pragmatics
description: His father and mother had died when he was only a babe, and the people who had the care of him were very poor. Who acts: father, boy, people. A sentence of «Fifty Famous Stories Retold» by James Baldwin, I. the City., 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/pg18442/49/2/)

<!-- 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/) / [I. the City.](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg18442/49/) / 2

# Fifty Famous Stories Retold, I. the City., sentence 2

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
His father and mother had died when he was only a babe, and the people who had the care of him were very poor.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** father, boy, people · **What happens:** die, be, have, care · **To what, where:** babe, care

<!-- .vabout -->
This is a sentence of «Fifty Famous Stories Retold» by James Baldwin, I. the City.. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (father, boy, people), 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:pg18442:49:2
# text = His father and mother had died when he was only a babe, and the people who had the care of him were very poor.
1	His	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	2	nmod:poss	_	_
2	father	father	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	nsubj	_	_
3	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	4	cc	_	_
4	mother	mother	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	2	conj	_	_
5	had	have	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	6	aux	_	_
6	died	die	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part	0	root	_	_
7	when	when	ADV	WRB	PronType=Int	12	advmod	_	_
8	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	12	nsubj	_	_
9	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	12	cop	_	_
10	only	only	ADV	RB	_	12	advmod	_	_
11	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	12	det	_	_
12	babe	babe	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	25	punct	_	_
14	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	25	cc	_	_
15	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	16	det	_	_
16	people	people	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	25	nsubj	_	_
17	who	who	PRON	WP	PronType=Rel	18	nsubj	_	_
18	had	have	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	16	acl:relcl	_	_
19	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	20	det	_	_
20	care	care	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	18	obj	_	_
21	of	of	ADP	IN	_	22	case	_	_
22	him	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	20	nmod	_	_
23	were	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	25	cop	_	_
24	very	very	ADV	RB	_	25	advmod	_	_
25	poor	poor	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	6	advcl	_	SpaceAfter=No
26	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	6	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **die** | past · perfect | boy's father and mother |  |  |  |  |  | vn calibratable\_cos-45.6.1 «NP.attribute V»: agent=Attribute |
| 2 | **is a** | past | boy | a babe |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 3 | **have** | past | the people | the care of boy |  |  |  |  | vn birth-28.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent care=Patient |
| 4 | **is** | past | the people |  |  |  |  | poor *property* | tree rules |
| 5 | **care** |  | boy |  |  |  |  |  | nom care «act intransitive»: of=agent |

<!-- .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 1](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg18442/49/1/)
- next →: [sentence 3](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg18442/49/3/)
- ↑ back to [I. the City.](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg18442/49/)