---
title: He would ask the great Napoleon, the em-per-or himself, to save his… — Fifty Famous Stories Retold · tree and pragmatics
description: He would ask the great Napoleon, the em-per-or himself, to save his plant. Who acts: thought. 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 138

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He would ask the great Napoleon, the em-per-or himself, to save his plant.

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**Who acts:** thought · **What happens:** ask, save · **To what, where:** great Napoleon, 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 (thought), 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:pg18442:54:138
# text = He would ask the great Napoleon, the em-per-or himself, to save his plant.
1	He	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	3	nsubj	_	_
2	would	would	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	3	aux	_	_
3	ask	ask	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	0	root	_	_
4	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	6	det	_	_
5	great	great	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	6	amod	_	_
6	Napoleon	Napoleon	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	3	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	9	punct	_	_
8	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	9	det	_	_
9	em-per-or	em-per-or	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	appos	_	_
10	himself	himself	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Emp|Reflex=Yes	9	nmod:unmarked	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	13	punct	_	_
12	to	to	PART	TO	_	13	mark	_	_
13	save	save	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	3	conj	_	_
14	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	15	nmod:poss	_	_
15	plant	plant	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	13	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **ask** *speech: ask* | would | thought |  | the great Napoleon |  |  |  | vn inquire-37.1.2 «NP V NP.recipient»: agent=Agent napoleon=Recipient |
| 2 | **save** | to-infinitive | thought *not said here* | thought's plant |  |  |  |  | vn get-13.5.1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent plant=Theme |

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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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