---
title: When King Henry heard of the death of his son his grief was more tha… — Fifty Famous Stories Retold · tree and pragmatics
description: When King Henry heard of the death of his son his grief was more than he could bear. Who acts: Henry, grief, man, son. A sentence of «Fifty Famous Stories Retold» by James Baldwin, The White Ship., with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Fifty Famous Stories Retold, The White Ship., sentence 40

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When King Henry heard of the death of his son his grief was more than he could bear.

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**Who acts:** Henry, grief, man, son · **What happens:** hear, be, bear, die

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This is a sentence of «Fifty Famous Stories Retold» by James Baldwin, The White Ship.. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Henry, grief, man, son), 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:pg18442:7:40
# text = When King Henry heard of the death of his son his grief was more than he could bear.
1	When	when	ADV	WRB	PronType=Int	4	advmod	_	_
2	King	King	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	3	nmod:desc	_	_
3	Henry	Henry	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	4	nsubj	_	_
4	heard	hear	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
5	of	of	ADP	IN	_	7	case	_	_
6	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	7	det	_	_
7	death	death	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	obl	_	_
8	of	of	ADP	IN	_	10	case	_	_
9	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	10	nmod:poss	_	_
10	son	son	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	nmod	_	_
11	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	12	nmod:poss	_	_
12	grief	grief	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	14	nsubj	_	_
13	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	14	cop	_	_
14	more	more	ADJ	JJR	Degree=Cmp	4	obj	_	_
15	than	than	SCONJ	IN	_	18	mark	_	_
16	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	18	nsubj	_	_
17	could	could	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	18	aux	_	_
18	bear	bear	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	14	advcl	_	SpaceAfter=No
19	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **hear** | past | Henry  King |  |  |  |  | of the death of man's son | vn see-30.1-1-1 «NP V PP.stimulus»: agent=Experiencer of death=Stimulus |
| 2 | **is** | past | man's grief |  |  |  |  | more *property* | tree rules |
| 3 | **bear** | could | man |  |  |  |  |  | vn admire-31.2 «NP V that S»: agent=Experiencer |
| 4 | **die** |  | man's son |  |  |  |  |  | nom death «event intransitive»: of=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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