---
title: None but a very great artist could ever carve such a figure; and how… — Fifty Famous Stories Retold · tree and pragmatics
description: None but a very great artist could ever carve such a figure; and how odd that he should choose to make it of butter!" Who acts: None, work. 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 53

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None but a very great artist could ever carve such a figure; and how odd that he should choose to make it of butter!"

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**Who acts:** None, work · **What happens:** carve, choose, make · **To what, where:** figure

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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 (None, work), 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:pg18442:54:53
# text = None but a very great artist could ever carve such a figure; and how odd that he should choose to make it of butter!"
1	None	none	PRON	NN	PronType=Neg	9	nsubj	_	_
2	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	6	cc	_	_
3	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	6	det	_	_
4	very	very	ADV	RB	_	5	advmod	_	_
5	great	great	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	6	amod	_	_
6	artist	artist	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	1	conj	_	_
7	could	could	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	9	aux	_	_
8	ever	ever	ADV	RB	PronType=Ind	9	advmod	_	_
9	carve	carve	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	0	root	_	_
10	such	such	DET	PDT	PronType=Ind	12	det:predet	_	_
11	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	12	det	_	_
12	figure	figure	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	9	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	;	;	PUNCT	:	_	16	punct	_	_
14	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	16	cc	_	_
15	how	how	ADV	WRB	PronType=Int	16	advmod	_	_
16	odd	odd	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	9	conj	_	_
17	that	that	SCONJ	IN	_	20	mark	_	_
18	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	20	nsubj	_	_
19	should	should	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	20	aux	_	_
20	choose	choose	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	16	advcl	_	_
21	to	to	PART	TO	_	22	mark	_	_
22	make	make	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	20	xcomp	_	_
23	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	22	obj	_	_
24	of	of	ADP	IN	_	25	case	_	_
25	butter	butter	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	22	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
26	!	!	PUNCT	.	_	9	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
27	"	"	PUNCT	''	_	9	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **carve** | could | None | such figure |  |  | ever |  | vn scribble-25.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent figure=Theme |
| 2 | **choose** | should | work |  |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 3 | **make** | to-infinitive | work *not said here* | figure |  |  |  | of butter | vn build-26.1-1 «NP.asset V NP»: agent=Asset it=Product |

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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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