---
title: But they shook their heads, and said that there was nothing about Ki… — Fifty Famous Stories Retold · tree and pragmatics
description: But they shook their heads, and said that there was nothing about King John in any of their books. Who acts: ni, nothing. 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/pg18442/9/30/)

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# Fifty Famous Stories Retold, I. the Three Questions., sentence 30

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But they shook their heads, and said that there was nothing about King John in any of their books.

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**Who acts:** ni, nothing · **What happens:** shake, say, be · **To what, where:** heads · **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 (ni, nothing), 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:pg18442:9:30
# text = But they shook their heads, and said that there was nothing about King John in any of their books.
1	But	but	CCONJ	CC	_	3	cc	_	_
2	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	3	nsubj	_	_
3	shook	shake	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
4	their	their	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Plur|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	5	nmod:poss	_	_
5	heads	head	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	3	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	8	punct	_	_
7	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	8	cc	_	_
8	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	3	conj	_	_
9	that	that	SCONJ	IN	_	11	mark	_	_
10	there	there	PRON	EX	PronType=Dem	11	expl	_	_
11	was	be	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	8	ccomp	_	_
12	nothing	nothing	PRON	NN	Number=Sing|PronType=Neg	11	nsubj	_	_
13	about	about	ADP	IN	_	15	case	_	_
14	King	King	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	15	nmod:desc	_	_
15	John	John	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	12	nmod	_	_
16	in	in	ADP	IN	_	17	case	_	_
17	any	any	DET	DT	PronType=Ind	15	nmod	_	_
18	of	of	ADP	IN	_	20	case	_	_
19	their	their	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Plur|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	20	nmod:poss	_	_
20	books	book	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	17	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
21	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **shake** | past | ni *= no* | ni's heads |  |  |  |  | vn shake-22.3-2 «NP V NP together»: agent=Agent head=Patient |
| 2 | **say** *speech: assert* | past | ni *= no* *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent clause=Topic |
| 3 | **be** | past | nothing |  |  | there |  |  | vn exist-47.1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |

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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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