---
title: One would think that you were trying to be king in my place." — Fifty Famous Stories Retold · tree and pragmatics
description: One would think that you were trying to be king in my place." Who acts: One, you. 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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# Fifty Famous Stories Retold, I. the Three Questions., sentence 17

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One would think that you were trying to be king in my place."

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**Who acts:** One, you · **What happens:** think, try, be · **To what, where:** place, king

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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 (One, you), 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:pg18442:9:17
# text = One would think that you were trying to be king in my place."
1	One	one	PRON	PRP	Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	3	nsubj	_	_
2	would	would	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	3	aux	_	_
3	think	think	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	0	root	_	_
4	that	that	SCONJ	IN	_	7	mark	_	_
5	you	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Person=2|PronType=Prs	7	nsubj	_	_
6	were	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=2|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	7	aux	_	_
7	trying	try	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	3	advcl	_	_
8	to	to	PART	TO	_	10	mark	_	_
9	be	be	AUX	VB	VerbForm=Inf	10	cop	_	_
10	king	king	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	xcomp	_	_
11	in	in	ADP	IN	_	13	case	_	_
12	my	my	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Sing|Person=1|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	13	nmod:poss	_	_
13	place	place	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	"	"	PUNCT	''	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **think** *speech: other* | would | One |  |  |  |  |  | vn focus-87.1-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 2 | **try** | past · progressive | you |  |  | my place |  |  | vn amuse-31.1 «NP V ADV-Middle»: agent=Experiencer |
| 3 | **is a** *not said to happen* | to-infinitive | you *not said here* | king |  |  |  |  | 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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