---
title: She saw the handkerchief on which he had written of its pretty ways. — Fifty Famous Stories Retold · tree and pragmatics
description: She saw the handkerchief on which he had written of its pretty ways. Who acts: wife, PICCIOLA. 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 150

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She saw the handkerchief on which he had written of its pretty ways.

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**Who acts:** wife, PICCIOLA · **What happens:** see, write · **To what, where:** handkerchief

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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 (wife, PICCIOLA), 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:pg18442:54:150
# text = She saw the handkerchief on which he had written of its pretty ways.
1	She	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	2	nsubj	_	_
2	saw	see	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	4	det	_	_
4	handkerchief	handkerchief	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	2	obj	_	_
5	on	on	ADP	IN	_	6	case	_	_
6	which	which	PRON	WDT	PronType=Rel	9	obl	_	_
7	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	9	nsubj	_	_
8	had	have	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	9	aux	_	_
9	written	write	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part	4	acl:relcl	_	_
10	of	of	ADP	IN	_	13	case	_	_
11	its	its	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	13	nmod:poss	_	_
12	pretty	pretty	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	13	amod	_	_
13	ways	way	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	9	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **see** | past | wife | the handkerchief |  |  |  |  | vn comprehend-87.2-1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Experiencer handkerchief=Stimulus |
| 2 | **write** | past · perfect | PICCIOLA |  |  | the handkerchief |  | of handkerchief's pretty ways | vn scribble-25.2-1 «NP V NP PP.destination»: agent=Agent on which=Destination |

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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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