---
title: But this was a thing which the jailer dared not do. — Fifty Famous Stories Retold · tree and pragmatics
description: But this was a thing which the jailer dared not do. Who acts: this, jailer. 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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[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg18442/54/131/)

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# Fifty Famous Stories Retold, Antonio Canova., sentence 131

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But this was a thing which the jailer dared not do.

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**Who acts:** this, jailer · **What happens:** be, do · **To what, where:** thing

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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 (this, jailer), 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:pg18442:54:131
# text = But this was a thing which the jailer dared not do.
1	But	but	CCONJ	CC	_	5	cc	_	_
2	this	this	PRON	DT	Number=Sing|PronType=Dem	5	nsubj	_	_
3	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	5	cop	_	_
4	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	5	det	_	_
5	thing	thing	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	0	root	_	_
6	which	which	PRON	WDT	PronType=Rel	11	obj	_	_
7	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	8	det	_	_
8	jailer	jailer	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	11	nsubj	_	_
9	dared	dare	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	11	aux	_	_
10	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	9	advmod	_	_
11	do	do	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	5	acl:relcl	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	5	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is a** | past | this | a thing |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **do** | past | the jailer | a thing |  |  |  |  | vn act-114-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent which=Eventuality |

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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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- ↑ back to [Antonio Canova.](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg18442/54/)