---
title: He lived, for life may long be borne Ere sorrow breaks its chain: Wh… — Fifty Famous Stories Retold · tree and pragmatics
description: He lived, for life may long be borne Ere sorrow breaks its chain: Why comes not death to those who mourn? Who acts: bark, Ere sorrow. A sentence of «Fifty Famous Stories Retold» by James Baldwin, He Never Smiled Again., with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

<!-- md -->
[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg18442/8/2/)

<!-- crumbs -->
[home](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) / [corpora](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/) / [tales](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/) / [Fifty Famous Stories Retold](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg18442/) / [He Never Smiled Again.](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg18442/8/) / 2

# Fifty Famous Stories Retold, He Never Smiled Again., sentence 2

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
He lived, for life may long be borne Ere sorrow breaks its chain: Why comes not death to those who mourn?

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** bark, Ere sorrow · **What happens:** live, bear, break, not come, mourn · **To what, where:** life, chain, death, those

<!-- .vabout -->
This is a sentence of «Fifty Famous Stories Retold» by James Baldwin, He Never Smiled Again.. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (bark, Ere sorrow), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

<!-- .note-en -->
**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:pg18442:8:2
# text = He lived, for life may long be borne Ere sorrow breaks its chain: Why comes not death to those who mourn?
1	He	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	2	nsubj	_	_
2	lived	live	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
3	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	9	punct	_	_
4	for	for	SCONJ	IN	_	9	mark	_	_
5	life	life	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	9	nsubj:pass	_	_
6	may	may	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	9	aux	_	_
7	long	long	ADV	RB	Degree=Pos	9	advmod	_	_
8	be	be	AUX	VB	VerbForm=Inf	9	aux:pass	_	_
9	borne	bear	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	12	advcl	_	_
10	Ere	ere	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	11	amod	_	_
11	sorrow	sorrow	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	12	nsubj	_	_
12	breaks	break	VERB	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	2	parataxis	_	_
13	its	its	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	14	nmod:poss	_	_
14	chain	chain	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	12	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	:	:	PUNCT	:	_	17	punct	_	_
16	Why	why	ADV	WRB	PronType=Int	17	advmod	_	_
17	comes	come	VERB	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	2	parataxis	_	_
18	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	17	advmod	_	_
19	death	death	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	17	obl	_	_
20	to	to	ADP	IN	_	21	case	_	_
21	those	that	PRON	DT	Number=Plur|PronType=Dem	17	obl	_	_
22	who	who	PRON	WP	PronType=Rel	23	nsubj	_	_
23	mourn	mourn	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	21	acl:relcl	_	SpaceAfter=No
24	?	?	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **live** | past | bark |  |  |  |  |  | vn exist-47.1-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 2 | **bear** | may · passive |  | life |  |  |  | long *property* | vn birth-28.2-1-1 «NP V NP»: subject=Patient |
| 3 | **break** | present | Ere sorrow | sorrow's chain |  |  |  |  | vn hurt-40.8.3-1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Experiencer chain=Patient |
| 4 | **not** **come** | present |  | death |  | those |  |  | vn escape-51.1-1 «NP V PP.initial\_location»: agent=Theme to that=Initial\_Location |
| 5 | **mourn** | present |  |  |  |  |  |  | vn marvel-31.3 «NP V»: agent=Experiencer |

<!-- .note -->
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.

<!-- div src -->

**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.

<!-- /div -->

<!-- pn -->
- ← previous: [sentence 1](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg18442/8/1/)
- next →: [sentence 3](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg18442/8/3/)
- ↑ back to [He Never Smiled Again.](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg18442/8/)