---
title: I would rather be an eagle, because it is strong and brave. — Fifty Famous Stories Retold · tree and pragmatics
description: I would rather be an eagle, because it is strong and brave. Who acts: I, face. A sentence of «Fifty Famous Stories Retold» by James Baldwin, The Sons of William the Conqueror., with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Fifty Famous Stories Retold, The Sons of William the Conqueror., sentence 20

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I would rather be an eagle, because it is strong and brave.

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**Who acts:** I, face · **What happens:** be · **To what, where:** eagle

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This is a sentence of «Fifty Famous Stories Retold» by James Baldwin, The Sons of William the Conqueror.. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (I, face), 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:pg18442:6:20
# text = I would rather be an eagle, because it is strong and brave.
1	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	6	nsubj	_	_
2	would	would	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	6	aux	_	_
3	rather	rather	ADV	RB	_	6	advmod	_	_
4	be	be	AUX	VB	VerbForm=Inf	6	cop	_	_
5	an	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	6	det	_	_
6	eagle	eagle	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	11	punct	_	_
8	because	because	SCONJ	IN	_	11	mark	_	_
9	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	11	nsubj	_	_
10	is	be	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	11	cop	_	_
11	strong	strong	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	6	parataxis	_	_
12	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	13	cc	_	_
13	brave	brave	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	11	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	6	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is a** | would | I | a eagle |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **is** | present | face |  |  |  |  | strong *property* | tree rules |
| 3 | **be** |  | face *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | 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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