---
title: The captain wondered at this, and asked if it was not very un-pleas-… — Fifty Famous Stories Retold · tree and pragmatics
description: The captain wondered at this, and asked if it was not very un-pleas-ant to have so many rats and mice about. Who acts: captain, it. A sentence of «Fifty Famous Stories Retold» by James Baldwin, IV. the Cat., 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/pg18442/52/8/)

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# Fifty Famous Stories Retold, IV. the Cat., sentence 8

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The captain wondered at this, and asked if it was not very un-pleas-ant to have so many rats and mice about.

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**Who acts:** captain, it · **What happens:** wonder, ask, not be, have · **To what, where:** this, many rats

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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, it), 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:pg18442:52:8
# text = The captain wondered at this, and asked if it was not very un-pleas-ant to have so many rats and mice about.
1	The	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	2	det	_	_
2	captain	captain	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	nsubj	_	_
3	wondered	wonder	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
4	at	at	ADP	IN	_	5	case	_	_
5	this	this	PRON	DT	Number=Sing|PronType=Dem	3	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	8	punct	_	_
7	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	8	cc	_	_
8	asked	ask	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	3	parataxis	_	_
9	if	if	SCONJ	IN	_	14	mark	_	_
10	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	14	nsubj	_	_
11	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	14	cop	_	_
12	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	14	advmod	_	_
13	very	very	ADV	RB	_	14	advmod	_	_
14	un-pleas-ant	un-pleas-ant	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	8	ccomp	_	_
15	to	to	PART	TO	_	16	mark	_	_
16	have	have	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	14	csubj	_	_
17	so	so	ADV	RB	_	18	advmod	_	_
18	many	many	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	19	amod	_	_
19	rats	rat	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	16	obj	_	_
20	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	21	cc	_	_
21	mice	mouse	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	19	conj	_	_
22	about	about	ADV	RB	_	16	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
23	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **wonder** *speech: ask* | past | the captain |  |  | this |  |  | vn care-88.1-1 «NP V»: agent=Experiencer |
| 2 | **ask** *speech: ask* | past |  |  |  |  |  |  | vn inquire-37.1.2 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 3 | **not** **is** *a condition, not said to happen* | past | it |  |  |  |  | un-pleas-ant *property* | tree rules |
| 4 | **have** | to-infinitive |  | many rats and mice |  |  |  | about *property* | vn birth-28.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent rat=Patient |

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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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