---
title: "O king!" said the abbot, "I beg to say that I am spending nothing b… — Fifty Famous Stories Retold · tree and pragmatics
description: "O king!" said the abbot, "I beg to say that I am spending nothing but what is my own. Who acts: king. A sentence of «Fifty Famous Stories Retold» by James Baldwin, I. the Three Questions., with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg18442/9/12/)

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# Fifty Famous Stories Retold, I. the Three Questions., sentence 12

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"O king!" said the abbot, "I beg to say that I am spending nothing but what is my own.

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**Who acts:** king · **What happens:** say, beg, spend, be · **To what, where:** abbot, nothing · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «Fifty Famous Stories Retold» by James Baldwin, I. the Three Questions.. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (king), 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:pg18442:9:12
# text = "O king!" said the abbot, "I beg to say that I am spending nothing but what is my own.
1	"	"	PUNCT	``	_	3	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	O	o	INTJ	UH	_	3	discourse	_	_
3	king	king	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
4	!	!	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
5	"	"	PUNCT	''	_	3	punct	_	_
6	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
7	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	8	det	_	_
8	abbot	abbot	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	12	punct	_	_
10	"	"	PUNCT	``	_	12	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	12	nsubj	_	_
12	beg	beg	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	6	conj	_	_
13	to	to	PART	TO	_	14	mark	_	_
14	say	say	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	12	xcomp	_	_
15	that	that	SCONJ	IN	_	18	mark	_	_
16	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	18	nsubj	_	_
17	am	be	AUX	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	18	aux	_	_
18	spending	spend	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	14	ccomp	_	_
19	nothing	nothing	PRON	NN	Number=Sing|PronType=Neg	18	obj	_	_
20	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	24	cc	_	_
21	what	what	PRON	WP	PronType=Int	24	nsubj	_	_
22	is	be	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	24	cop	_	_
23	my	my	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Sing|Person=1|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	24	nmod:poss	_	_
24	own	own	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	18	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
25	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	6	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **say** *speech: assert* | past | king | the abbot |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V NP.topic»: agent=Agent abbot=Topic |
| 2 | **beg** *speech: request* *in a quote* | present | king |  |  |  |  |  | vn beg-58.2-1-1 «NP V S\_INF»: agent=Agent clause=Topic |
| 3 | **say** *speech: assert* *not said to happen, in a quote* | to-infinitive | king *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent clause=Topic |
| 4 | **spend** *in a quote* | present · progressive | king | nothing |  |  |  |  | vn consume-66-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent nothing=Asset |
| 5 | **is** *in a quote* | present |  |  |  |  |  | own *property* | 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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