---
title: An-to-ni-o was a puny lad, and not strong enough to work. — Fifty Famous Stories Retold · tree and pragmatics
description: An-to-ni-o was a puny lad, and not strong enough to work. Who acts: ni o. 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 4

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An-to-ni-o was a puny lad, and not strong enough to work.

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**Who acts:** ni o · **What happens:** be, work · **To what, where:** puny lad

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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 (ni o), 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:pg18442:54:4
# text = An-to-ni-o was a puny lad, and not strong enough to work.
1	An	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	7	det	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	5	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
3	to	to	ADP	IN	_	5	case	_	SpaceAfter=No
4	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	3	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
5	ni	no	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	7	compound	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	5	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	o	o	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	11	nsubj	_	_
8	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	11	cop	_	_
9	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	11	det	_	_
10	puny	puny	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	11	amod	_	_
11	lad	lad	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	15	punct	_	_
13	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	15	cc	_	_
14	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	15	advmod	_	_
15	strong	strong	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	11	acl:relcl	_	_
16	enough	enough	ADV	RB	_	15	advmod	_	_
17	to	to	PART	TO	_	18	mark	_	_
18	work	work	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	15	advcl	_	SpaceAfter=No
19	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	11	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is a** | past | a ni o | a puny lad |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **work** | to-infinitive | a ni o *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn employment-95.3 «NP V»: agent=Agent |

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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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