---
title: His grand-fa-ther was a stone-cut-ter, and he was very poor. — Fifty Famous Stories Retold · tree and pragmatics
description: His grand-fa-ther was a stone-cut-ter, and he was very poor. Who acts: grand fa ther, boy. 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 3

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His grand-fa-ther was a stone-cut-ter, and he was very poor.

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**Who acts:** grand fa ther, boy · **What happens:** be · **To what, where:** cut ter

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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 (grand fa ther, boy), 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:pg18442:54:3
# text = His grand-fa-ther was a stone-cut-ter, and he was very poor.
1	His	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	6	nmod:poss	_	_
2	grand	grand	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	6	amod	_	SpaceAfter=No
3	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	2	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
4	fa	fa	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	compound	_	SpaceAfter=No
5	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	4	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	ther	ther	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	13	nsubj	_	_
7	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	13	cop	_	_
8	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	13	det	_	_
9	stone	stone	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	11	compound	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	9	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	cut	cut	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	13	compound	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	11	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	ter	ter	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	19	punct	_	_
15	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	19	cc	_	_
16	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	19	nsubj	_	_
17	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	19	cop	_	_
18	very	very	ADV	RB	_	19	advmod	_	_
19	poor	poor	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	13	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
20	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	13	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is a** | past | boy's grand fa ther | a cut ter |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **is** | past | boy |  |  |  |  | poor *property* | tree rules |

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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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