---
title: The man tried to get loose; but Wilhelm held him fast. — Fifty Famous Stories Retold · tree and pragmatics
description: The man tried to get loose; but Wilhelm held him fast. Who acts: man, Wilhelm. 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 177

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The man tried to get loose; but Wilhelm held him fast.

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**Who acts:** man, Wilhelm · **What happens:** try, get, hold · **To what, where:** man

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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 (man, Wilhelm), 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:pg18442:54:177
# text = The man tried to get loose; but Wilhelm held him fast.
1	The	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	2	det	_	_
2	man	man	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	nsubj	_	_
3	tried	try	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
4	to	to	PART	TO	_	5	mark	_	_
5	get	get	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	3	xcomp	_	_
6	loose	loose	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	5	xcomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	;	;	PUNCT	:	_	10	punct	_	_
8	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	10	cc	_	_
9	Wilhelm	Wilhelm	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	10	nsubj	_	_
10	held	hold	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	3	conj	_	_
11	him	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	10	obj	_	_
12	fast	fast	ADV	RB	Degree=Pos	10	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **try** | past | the man |  |  |  |  |  | vn try-61.1 «NP V S\_INF»: agent=Agent clause=Eventuality |
| 2 | **get** *not said to happen* | to-infinitive | the man *not said here* |  |  |  |  | loose *property* | vn comprehend-87.2-1 «NP V S\_ING»: agent=Experiencer |
| 3 | **hold** | past | Wilhelm | man |  |  |  | fast *property* | vn keep-15.2 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent he=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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