---
title: Have the boys come before you, and then ask them what you please." — Fifty Famous Stories Retold · tree and pragmatics
description: Have the boys come before you, and then ask them what you please." Who acts: you, boys. 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 9

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Have the boys come before you, and then ask them what you please."

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**Who acts:** you, boys · **What happens:** have, come, ask · **To what, where:** boys

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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 (you, boys), 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:pg18442:6:9
# text = Have the boys come before you, and then ask them what you please."
1	Have	have	VERB	VB	Mood=Imp|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
2	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	3	det	_	_
3	boys	boy	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	4	nsubj	_	_
4	come	come	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	1	ccomp	_	_
5	before	before	ADP	IN	_	6	case	_	_
6	you	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Person=2|PronType=Prs	4	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	10	punct	_	_
8	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	10	cc	_	_
9	then	then	ADV	RB	PronType=Dem	10	advmod	_	_
10	ask	ask	VERB	VB	Mood=Imp|VerbForm=Fin	4	parataxis	_	_
11	them	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	10	iobj	_	_
12	what	what	PRON	WP	PronType=Int	10	ccomp	_	_
13	you	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Person=2|PronType=Prs	12	nsubj	_	_
14	please	please	INTJ	UH	_	12	discourse	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	1	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	"	"	PUNCT	''	_	1	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **have** | imperative | you *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **come** | present | the boys |  |  |  | before you |  | vn appear-48.1.1 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Theme before you=Location |
| 3 | **ask** *speech: ask* | infinitive |  |  | boys *= boy* |  | then |  | vn inquire-37.1.2 «NP V NP.recipient»: agent=Agent they=Recipient |

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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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