---
title: But once it was almost broken by the huge feet of the jailer's dog. — Fifty Famous Stories Retold · tree and pragmatics
description: But once it was almost broken by the huge feet of the jailer's dog. Who acts: huge feet. 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 109

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But once it was almost broken by the huge feet of the jailer's dog.

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**Who acts:** huge feet · **What happens:** break · **To what, where:** plant

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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 (huge feet), 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:pg18442:54:109
# text = But once it was almost broken by the huge feet of the jailer's dog.
1	But	but	CCONJ	CC	_	6	cc	_	_
2	once	once	SCONJ	IN	_	6	mark	_	_
3	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	6	nsubj:pass	_	_
4	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	6	aux:pass	_	_
5	almost	almost	ADV	RB	_	6	advmod	_	_
6	broken	break	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	0	root	_	_
7	by	by	ADP	IN	_	10	case	_	_
8	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	10	det	_	_
9	huge	huge	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	10	amod	_	_
10	feet	foot	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	6	obl	_	_
11	of	of	ADP	IN	_	15	case	_	_
12	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	13	det	_	_
13	jailer	jailer	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	15	nmod:poss	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	's	's	PART	POS	_	13	case	_	_
15	dog	dog	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	10	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	6	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **break** | past · passive | the huge feet of the jailer's dog | plant |  |  |  | almost *property* | vn hurt-40.8.3-1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Experiencer subject=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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- ← previous: [sentence 108](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg18442/54/108/)
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- ↑ back to [Antonio Canova.](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg18442/54/)