---
title: The song which he liked best was one whose words he had never heard… — Fifty Famous Stories Retold · tree and pragmatics
description: The song which he liked best was one whose words he had never heard before. Who acts: Wilhelm, song. 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 223

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The song which he liked best was one whose words he had never heard before.

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**Who acts:** Wilhelm, song · **What happens:** like, be, not hear · **To what, where:** song, one, words

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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 (Wilhelm, song), 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:pg18442:54:223
# text = The song which he liked best was one whose words he had never heard before.
1	The	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	2	det	_	_
2	song	song	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	8	nsubj	_	_
3	which	which	PRON	WDT	PronType=Rel	5	obj	_	_
4	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	5	nsubj	_	_
5	liked	like	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	2	acl:relcl	_	_
6	best	good	ADJ	JJS	Degree=Sup	5	obj	_	_
7	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	8	cop	_	_
8	one	one	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	0	root	_	_
9	whose	whose	PRON	WP$	Poss=Yes|PronType=Rel	10	nmod:poss	_	_
10	words	word	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	14	nsubj:pass	_	_
11	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	14	nsubj	_	_
12	had	have	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	14	aux	_	_
13	never	never	ADV	RB	PronType=Neg	14	advmod	_	_
14	heard	hear	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	8	parataxis	_	_
15	before	before	ADV	RB	_	14	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	8	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **like** | past | Wilhelm | the song |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **is a** | past | the song | one |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 3 | **not** **hear** | past · perfect · passive |  | words |  |  |  | before *property* | vn see-30.1-1-1 «NP V S»: subject=Stimulus |

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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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