---
title: Your fault is plain, and unless you can answer me three questions, y… — Fifty Famous Stories Retold · tree and pragmatics
description: Your fault is plain, and unless you can answer me three questions, your head shall be cut off, and all your riches shall be mine." Who acts: fault, you, riches, Your. A sentence of «Fifty Famous Stories Retold» by James Baldwin, I. the Three Questions., with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of
---

<!-- md -->
[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg18442/9/20/)

<!-- 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/) / [I. the Three Questions.](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg18442/9/) / 20

# Fifty Famous Stories Retold, I. the Three Questions., sentence 20

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
Your fault is plain, and unless you can answer me three questions, your head shall be cut off, and all your riches shall be mine."

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** fault, you, riches, Your · **What happens:** be, answer, cut off, fault · **To what, where:** three questions, me, head, mine

<!-- .vabout -->
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 (fault, you, riches, Your), 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:pg18442:9:20
# text = Your fault is plain, and unless you can answer me three questions, your head shall be cut off, and all your riches shall be mine."
1	Your	your	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Person=2|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	2	nmod:poss	_	_
2	fault	fault	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	nsubj	_	_
3	is	be	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	4	cop	_	_
4	plain	plain	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
5	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	10	punct	_	_
6	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	10	cc	_	_
7	unless	unless	SCONJ	IN	_	10	mark	_	_
8	you	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Person=2|PronType=Prs	10	nsubj	_	_
9	can	can	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	10	aux	_	_
10	answer	answer	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	4	conj	_	_
11	me	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	10	obj	_	_
12	three	three	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	13	nummod	_	_
13	questions	question	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	10	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	19	punct	_	_
15	your	your	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Person=2|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	16	nmod:poss	_	_
16	head	head	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	19	nsubj:pass	_	_
17	shall	shall	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	19	aux	_	_
18	be	be	AUX	VB	VerbForm=Inf	19	aux:pass	_	_
19	cut	cut	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	10	parataxis	_	_
20	off	off	ADP	RP	_	19	compound:prt	_	SpaceAfter=No
21	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	28	punct	_	_
22	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	28	cc	_	_
23	all	all	DET	PDT	PronType=Tot	25	det:predet	_	_
24	your	your	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Person=2|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	25	nmod:poss	_	_
25	riches	rich	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	28	nsubj	_	_
26	shall	shall	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	28	aux	_	_
27	be	be	AUX	VB	VerbForm=Inf	28	cop	_	_
28	mine	my	PRON	PRP	Number=Sing|Person=1|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	4	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
29	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
30	"	"	PUNCT	''	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is** | present | Your fault |  |  |  |  | plain *property* | tree rules |
| 2 | **answer** *speech: assert* *a condition, not said to happen* | can | you | three questions | me |  |  |  | vn reciprocate-112-1 «NP V NP PP»: agent=Agent i=Theme question=Eventuality |
| 3 | **cut off** | shall · passive |  | your head |  |  |  |  | vn stop-55.4-1 «NP V NP.eventuality»: subject=Eventuality |
| 4 | **is a** | shall | your riches | mine |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 5 | **fault** |  | Your |  |  |  |  |  | nom fault «act transitive»: poss=agent |

<!-- .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 19](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg18442/9/19/)
- next →: [sentence 21](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg18442/9/21/)
- ↑ back to [I. the Three Questions.](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg18442/9/)