---
title: Only the highest officers in the land could have such a thing done. — Fifty Famous Stories Retold · tree and pragmatics
description: Only the highest officers in the land could have such a thing done. Who acts: highest officers, thing. 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/pg18442/54/133/)

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# Fifty Famous Stories Retold, Antonio Canova., sentence 133

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Only the highest officers in the land could have such a thing done.

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**Who acts:** highest officers, thing · **What happens:** have, 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 (highest officers, thing), 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:pg18442:54:133
# text = Only the highest officers in the land could have such a thing done.
1	Only	only	ADV	RB	_	4	advmod	_	_
2	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	4	det	_	_
3	highest	high	ADJ	JJS	Degree=Sup	4	amod	_	_
4	officers	officer	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	9	nsubj	_	_
5	in	in	ADP	IN	_	7	case	_	_
6	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	7	det	_	_
7	land	land	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	nmod	_	_
8	could	could	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	9	aux	_	_
9	have	have	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	0	root	_	_
10	such	such	DET	PDT	PronType=Ind	12	det:predet	_	_
11	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	12	det	_	_
12	thing	thing	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	9	obj	_	_
13	done	do	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	9	xcomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	9	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **have** | could | the highest officers in the land | such thing |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **do** | participle | such thing *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn act-114-1 «NP V»: agent=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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- ← previous: [sentence 132](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg18442/54/132/)
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- ↑ back to [Antonio Canova.](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg18442/54/)