---
title: A good many years ago there lived in Italy a little boy whose name w… — Fifty Famous Stories Retold · tree and pragmatics
description: A good many years ago there lived in Italy a little boy whose name was An-to'ni-o Ca-no'va. Who acts: name, to'ni. A sentence of «Fifty Famous Stories Retold» by James Baldwin, Antonio Canova., with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Fifty Famous Stories Retold, Antonio Canova., sentence 1

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A good many years ago there lived in Italy a little boy whose name was An-to'ni-o Ca-no'va.

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**Who acts:** name, to'ni · **What happens:** live, be, name · **To what, where:** Italy, to'ni

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This is a sentence of «Fifty Famous Stories Retold» by James Baldwin, Antonio Canova.. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (name, to'ni), 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:pg18442:54:1
# text = A good many years ago there lived in Italy a little boy whose name was An-to'ni-o Ca-no'va.
1	A	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	4	det	_	_
2	good	good	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	4	amod	_	_
3	many	many	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	4	amod	_	_
4	years	year	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	7	obl:unmarked	_	_
5	ago	ago	ADV	RB	_	4	advmod	_	_
6	there	there	ADV	RB	PronType=Dem	7	advmod	_	_
7	lived	live	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
8	in	in	ADP	IN	_	9	case	_	_
9	Italy	Italy	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	7	obl	_	_
10	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	12	det	_	_
11	little	little	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	12	amod	_	_
12	boy	boy	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	advcl	_	_
13	whose	whose	PRON	WP$	Poss=Yes|PronType=Rel	14	nmod:poss	_	_
14	name	name	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	18	nsubj	_	_
15	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	18	cop	_	_
16	An	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	18	det	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	16	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
18	to'ni	to'ni	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	12	acl:relcl	_	SpaceAfter=No
19	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	23	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
20	o	of	ADP	IN	Abbr=Yes	23	case	_	_
21	Ca	Ca	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	23	compound	_	SpaceAfter=No
22	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	21	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
23	no'va	no'va	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	18	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
24	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	7	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **live** | past |  |  |  | Italy; there | year |  | vn lodge-46 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Theme in italy=Location |
| 2 | **is a** | past | a to'ni and Ca no'va's name | a to'ni and Ca no'va |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 3 | **name** |  | a to'ni and Ca no'va |  |  |  |  |  | nom name «communication transitive»: poss=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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