---
title: It was a hard thing for Charney to do,--to ask a favor of the man wh… — Fifty Famous Stories Retold · tree and pragmatics
description: It was a hard thing for Charney to do,--to ask a favor of the man whom he hated, the man who had shut him up in this very prison. Who acts: plant, Charney, man. 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/pg18442/54/139/)

<!-- 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/) / 139

# Fifty Famous Stories Retold, Antonio Canova., sentence 139

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
It was a hard thing for Charney to do,--to ask a favor of the man whom he hated, the man who had shut him up in this very prison.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** plant, Charney, man · **What happens:** be, --, ask, hate, shut up, favor · **To what, where:** hard thing, favor, man, Charney, prison

<!-- .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 (plant, Charney, man), 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:pg18442:54:139
# text = It was a hard thing for Charney to do,--to ask a favor of the man whom he hated, the man who had shut him up in this very prison.
1	It	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	5	nsubj	_	_
2	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	5	cop	_	_
3	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	5	det	_	_
4	hard	hard	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	5	amod	_	_
5	thing	thing	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	0	root	_	_
6	for	for	SCONJ	IN	_	11	mark	_	_
7	Charney	Charney	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	11	nsubj	_	_
8	to	to	PART	TO	_	9	mark	_	_
9	do	do	AUX	VB	Mood=Imp|VerbForm=Fin	11	aux	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	11	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	--	--	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	5	advcl	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	to	to	PART	TO	_	13	mark	_	_
13	ask	ask	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	11	xcomp	_	_
14	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	15	det	_	_
15	favor	favor	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	13	obj	_	_
16	of	of	ADP	IN	_	18	case	_	_
17	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	18	det	_	_
18	man	man	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	15	nmod	_	_
19	whom	whom	PRON	WP	PronType=Rel	21	obj	_	_
20	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	21	nsubj	_	_
21	hated	hate	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	18	acl:relcl	_	SpaceAfter=No
22	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	24	punct	_	_
23	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	24	det	_	_
24	man	man	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	15	appos	_	_
25	who	who	PRON	WP	PronType=Rel	27	nsubj	_	_
26	had	have	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	27	aux	_	_
27	shut	shut	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part	24	acl:relcl	_	_
28	him	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	27	obj	_	_
29	up	up	ADP	RP	_	27	compound:prt	_	_
30	in	in	ADP	IN	_	33	case	_	_
31	this	this	DET	DT	Number=Sing|PronType=Dem	33	det	_	_
32	very	very	ADV	RB	_	33	advmod	_	_
33	prison	prison	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	27	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
34	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	5	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is a** | past | plant | a hard thing |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **--** | infinitive · do-support | Charney |  |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 3 | **ask** *speech: ask* | to-infinitive | Charney *not said here* | a favor of the man |  |  |  |  | vn inquire-37.1.2 «NP V NP.recipient»: agent=Agent favor=Recipient |
| 4 | **hate** | past | Charney | the man |  |  |  |  | vn admire-31.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Experiencer whom=Stimulus |
| 5 | **shut up** | past · perfect | the man | Charney |  | this prison |  |  | vn subjugate-42.3 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent he=Patient |
| 6 | **favor** |  |  | the man |  |  |  |  | nom favor «act transitive»: of=patient |

<!-- .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 138](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg18442/54/138/)
- next →: [sentence 140](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg18442/54/140/)
- ↑ back to [Antonio Canova.](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg18442/54/)