---
title: When the jailer came to bring his food, he begged the grim fellow to… — Fifty Famous Stories Retold · tree and pragmatics
description: When the jailer came to bring his food, he begged the grim fellow to spare his little plant. Who acts: jailer. A sentence of «Fifty Famous Stories Retold» by James Baldwin, Antonio Canova., 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/pg18442/54/100/)

<!-- 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/) / [Antonio Canova.](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg18442/54/) / 100

# Fifty Famous Stories Retold, Antonio Canova., sentence 100

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
When the jailer came to bring his food, he begged the grim fellow to spare his little plant.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** jailer · **What happens:** come, bring, beg, spare · **To what, where:** food, grim fellow, little plant

<!-- .vabout -->
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 (jailer), 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:pg18442:54:100
# text = When the jailer came to bring his food, he begged the grim fellow to spare his little plant.
1	When	when	SCONJ	WRB	_	4	mark	_	_
2	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	3	det	_	_
3	jailer	jailer	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	nsubj	_	_
4	came	come	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	11	advcl	_	_
5	to	to	PART	TO	_	6	mark	_	_
6	bring	bring	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	4	xcomp	_	_
7	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	8	nmod:poss	_	_
8	food	food	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	4	punct	_	_
10	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	11	nsubj	_	_
11	begged	beg	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
12	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	14	det	_	_
13	grim	grim	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	14	amod	_	_
14	fellow	fellow	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	11	obj	_	_
15	to	to	PART	TO	_	16	mark	_	_
16	spare	spare	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	14	acl	_	_
17	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	19	nmod:poss	_	_
18	little	little	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	19	amod	_	_
19	plant	plant	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	16	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
20	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	11	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **come** | past | the jailer |  |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **bring** | to-infinitive | the jailer *not said here* | jailer's food |  |  |  |  | vn bring-11.3-1 «NP V NP together»: agent=Agent food=Theme |
| 3 | **beg** *speech: request* | past | jailer |  | the grim fellow |  |  |  | vn beg-58.2-1-1 «NP V NP PP.Topic»: agent=Agent fellow=Recipient |
| 4 | **spare** | to-infinitive | jailer *not said here* | jailer's little plant |  |  |  |  | vn bill-54.5 «NP V NP NP.asset»: agent=Agent plant=Asset |

<!-- .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 99](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg18442/54/99/)
- next →: [sentence 101](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg18442/54/101/)
- ↑ back to [Antonio Canova.](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg18442/54/)