---
title: The captain called, "Pussy, pussy, pussy!" and the cat came up and r… — Fifty Famous Stories Retold · tree and pragmatics
description: The captain called, "Pussy, pussy, pussy!" and the cat came up and rubbed against his legs. Who acts: captain. A sentence of «Fifty Famous Stories Retold» by James Baldwin, IV. the Cat., 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/pg18442/52/21/)

<!-- 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/) / [IV. the Cat.](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg18442/52/) / 21

# Fifty Famous Stories Retold, IV. the Cat., sentence 21

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
The captain called, "Pussy, pussy, pussy!" and the cat came up and rubbed against his legs.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** captain · **What happens:** call, come up, rub · **To what, where:** captain, legs · **Speech:** someone speaks here

<!-- .vabout -->
This is a sentence of «Fifty Famous Stories Retold» by James Baldwin, IV. the Cat.. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (captain), 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:pg18442:52:21
# text = The captain called, "Pussy, pussy, pussy!" and the cat came up and rubbed against his legs.
1	The	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	2	det	_	_
2	captain	captain	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	16	nsubj	_	_
3	called	call	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	2	acl	_	SpaceAfter=No
4	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	6	punct	_	_
5	"	"	PUNCT	``	_	6	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	Pussy	pussy	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	2	appos	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	8	punct	_	_
8	pussy	pussy	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	6	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	10	punct	_	_
10	pussy	pussy	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	6	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	!	!	PUNCT	.	_	10	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	"	"	PUNCT	''	_	6	punct	_	_
13	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	15	cc	_	_
14	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	15	det	_	_
15	cat	cat	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	2	conj	_	_
16	came	come	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
17	up	up	ADV	RB	_	16	advmod	_	_
18	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	19	cc	_	_
19	rubbed	rub	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part	16	conj	_	_
20	against	against	ADP	IN	_	22	case	_	_
21	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	22	nmod:poss	_	_
22	legs	leg	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	19	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
23	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	16	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **call** | participle |  | the captain and the cat *not said here* |  |  |  |  | vn initiate\_communication-37.4.2-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 2 | **come up** | past | the captain and the cat |  |  |  |  |  | vn escape-51.1-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 3 | **rub** | participle | the captain and the cat *not said here* |  |  | king's legs |  |  | vn spray-9.7-1 «NP V PP.destination»: agent=Theme against leg=Destination |

<!-- .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 20](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg18442/52/20/)
- next →: [sentence 22](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg18442/52/22/)
- ↑ back to [IV. the Cat.](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg18442/52/)