---
title: Many years ago there was a poor gentleman shut up in one of the grea… — Fifty Famous Stories Retold · tree and pragmatics
description: Many years ago there was a poor gentleman shut up in one of the great prisons of France. Who acts: poor gentleman. 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 69

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Many years ago there was a poor gentleman shut up in one of the great prisons of France.

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**Who acts:** poor gentleman · **What happens:** be, shut up · **To what, where:** poor gentleman

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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 (poor gentleman), 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:pg18442:54:69
# text = Many years ago there was a poor gentleman shut up in one of the great prisons of France.
1	Many	many	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	2	amod	_	_
2	years	year	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	5	obl:unmarked	_	_
3	ago	ago	ADV	RB	_	2	advmod	_	_
4	there	there	PRON	EX	PronType=Dem	5	expl	_	_
5	was	be	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
6	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	8	det	_	_
7	poor	poor	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	8	amod	_	_
8	gentleman	gentleman	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	nsubj	_	_
9	shut	shut	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	8	acl	_	_
10	up	up	ADP	RP	_	9	compound:prt	_	_
11	in	in	ADP	IN	_	12	case	_	_
12	one	one	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	9	obl	_	_
13	of	of	ADP	IN	_	16	case	_	_
14	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	16	det	_	_
15	great	great	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	16	amod	_	_
16	prisons	prison	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	12	nmod	_	_
17	of	of	ADP	IN	_	18	case	_	_
18	France	France	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	16	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
19	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	5	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **be** | past | a poor gentleman |  |  | there | year |  | vn exist-47.1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 2 | **shut up** | participle |  | a poor gentleman *not said here* |  |  |  | in one of the great prisons of France | vn subjugate-42.3 «NP V NP»: 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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