---
title: Do you think," she would say, "that puss will sell for enough money… — Fifty Famous Stories Retold · tree and pragmatics
description: Do you think," she would say, "that puss will sell for enough money to buy a stick to beat you?" Who acts: you, cat, puss. 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/pg18442/51/20/)

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# Fifty Famous Stories Retold, III. the Venture., sentence 20

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Do you think," she would say, "that puss will sell for enough money to buy a stick to beat you?"

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**Who acts:** you, cat, puss · **What happens:** think, say, sell, buy, beat · **To what, where:** stick, you · **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 (you, cat, puss), 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:pg18442:51:20
# text = Do you think," she would say, "that puss will sell for enough money to buy a stick to beat you?"
1	Do	do	AUX	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=2|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	3	aux	_	_
2	you	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Person=2|PronType=Prs	3	nsubj	_	_
3	think	think	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
4	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	8	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
5	"	"	PUNCT	``	_	8	punct	_	_
6	she	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	8	nsubj	_	_
7	would	would	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	8	aux	_	_
8	say	say	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	3	ccomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	14	punct	_	_
10	"	"	PUNCT	``	_	14	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	that	that	DET	DT	Number=Sing|PronType=Dem	12	det	_	_
12	puss	puss	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	14	nsubj	_	_
13	will	will	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	14	aux	_	_
14	sell	sell	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	8	ccomp	_	_
15	for	for	ADP	IN	_	17	case	_	_
16	enough	enough	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	17	amod	_	_
17	money	money	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	14	obl	_	_
18	to	to	PART	TO	_	19	mark	_	_
19	buy	buy	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	14	advcl	_	_
20	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	21	det	_	_
21	stick	stick	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	19	obj	_	_
22	to	to	PART	TO	_	23	mark	_	_
23	beat	beat	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	19	advcl	_	_
24	you	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Person=2|PronType=Prs	23	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
25	?	?	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
26	"	"	PUNCT	''	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **think** *speech: other* | present · do-support | you |  |  |  |  |  | vn consider-29.9-2 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent clause=Theme |
| 2 | **say** *speech: assert* *in a quote* | would | cat |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent clause=Topic |
| 3 | **sell** | future | that puss |  |  |  |  | for enough money | vn give-13.1-1 «NP V NP PP.asset»: agent=Agent for money=Asset |
| 4 | **buy** | to-infinitive | that puss *not said here* | a stick |  |  |  |  | vn accept-77.1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent stick=Theme |
| 5 | **beat** | to-infinitive | that puss *not said here* | you |  |  |  |  | vn sound\_emission-43.2 «PP.location V NP»: agent=Location you=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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