---
title: "There is nothing that dares to dis-o-bey you, O king!" they said. " — Fifty Famous Stories Retold · tree and pragmatics
description: "There is nothing that dares to dis-o-bey you, O king!" they said. " Who acts: nothing, things. A sentence of «Fifty Famous Stories Retold» by James Baldwin, King Canute on the Seashore., with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Fifty Famous Stories Retold, King Canute on the Seashore., sentence 14

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"There is nothing that dares to dis-o-bey you, O king!" they said. "

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**Who acts:** nothing, things · **What happens:** be, dare, dis, say · **To what, where:** bey · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «Fifty Famous Stories Retold» by James Baldwin, King Canute on the Seashore.. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (nothing, things), 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:pg18442:5:14
# text = "There is nothing that dares to dis-o-bey you, O king!" they said. "
1	"	"	PUNCT	``	_	3	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	There	there	PRON	EX	PronType=Dem	3	expl	_	_
3	is	be	VERB	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
4	nothing	nothing	PRON	NN	Number=Sing|PronType=Neg	3	nsubj	_	_
5	that	that	PRON	WDT	PronType=Rel	6	nsubj	_	_
6	dares	dare	VERB	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	4	acl:relcl	_	_
7	to	to	PART	TO	_	8	mark	_	_
8	dis	dis	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	6	xcomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	12	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	o	of	ADP	IN	Abbr=Yes	12	case	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	10	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	bey	bey	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	8	obj	_	_
13	you	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Person=2|PronType=Prs	12	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	16	punct	_	_
15	O	o	INTJ	UH	_	16	discourse	_	_
16	king	king	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	20	ccomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	!	!	PUNCT	.	_	16	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
18	"	"	PUNCT	''	_	16	punct	_	_
19	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	20	nsubj	_	_
20	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	4	acl	_	SpaceAfter=No
21	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	_
22	"	"	PUNCT	''	_	3	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **be** *in a quote* | present | nothing |  |  | there |  |  | vn exist-47.1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 2 | **dare** *in a quote* | present |  |  |  |  |  |  | vn urge-58.1-1 «NP V NP S\_ING»: agent=Agent clause=Topic |
| 3 | **dis** *in a quote* | to-infinitive |  | bey |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 4 | **say** *speech: express* | past | things *= thing* |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent |

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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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