---
title: "I have nothing in the world," he said, "but a cat which I bought so… — Fifty Famous Stories Retold · tree and pragmatics
description: "I have nothing in the world," he said, "but a cat which I bought some time ago for a penny." Who acts: Dick, cat. A sentence of «Fifty Famous Stories Retold» by James Baldwin, III. the Venture., with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg18442/51/13/)

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# Fifty Famous Stories Retold, III. the Venture., sentence 13

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"I have nothing in the world," he said, "but a cat which I bought some time ago for a penny."

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**Who acts:** Dick, cat · **What happens:** have, say, buy · **To what, where:** nothing, world · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «Fifty Famous Stories Retold» by James Baldwin, III. the Venture.. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Dick, cat), 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:pg18442:51:13
# text = "I have nothing in the world," he said, "but a cat which I bought some time ago for a penny."
1	"	"	PUNCT	``	_	3	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	3	nsubj	_	_
3	have	have	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	11	ccomp	_	_
4	nothing	nothing	PRON	NN	Number=Sing|PronType=Neg	3	obj	_	_
5	in	in	ADP	IN	_	7	case	_	_
6	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	7	det	_	_
7	world	world	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	3	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	"	"	PUNCT	''	_	3	punct	_	_
10	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	11	nsubj	_	_
11	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	11	punct	_	_
13	"	"	PUNCT	''	_	11	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	16	cc	_	_
15	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	16	det	_	_
16	cat	cat	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	11	conj	_	_
17	which	which	PRON	WDT	PronType=Rel	19	nsubj	_	_
18	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	19	nsubj	_	_
19	bought	buy	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	16	acl:relcl	_	_
20	some	some	DET	DT	PronType=Ind	21	det	_	_
21	time	time	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	22	obl:unmarked	_	_
22	ago	ago	ADV	RB	_	19	advmod	_	_
23	for	for	ADP	IN	_	25	case	_	_
24	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	25	det	_	_
25	penny	penny	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	19	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
26	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	11	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
27	"	"	PUNCT	''	_	11	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **have** *in a quote* | present | Dick | nothing |  | the world |  |  | vn birth-28.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent nothing=Patient |
| 2 | **say** *speech: assert* | past | Dick |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent clause=Topic |
| 3 | **buy** *in a quote* | past | a cat |  |  |  |  | for a penny; ago *property* | vn get-13.5.1 «NP V NP PP.beneficiary»: agent=Agent for penny=Beneficiary |

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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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