---
title: “But you cannot swim well,” argued the dog. — The Jade Story Book; Stories from the Orient · tree and pragmatics
description: “But you cannot swim well,” argued the dog. Who acts: you, dog. A sentence of «The Jade Story Book; Stories from the Orient» by Penrhyn Wingfield Coussens, Opening, part 18, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Jade Story Book; Stories from the Orient, Opening, part 18, sentence 103

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“But you cannot swim well,” argued the dog.

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**Who acts:** you, dog · **What happens:** not swim, argue · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «The Jade Story Book; Stories from the Orient» by Penrhyn Wingfield Coussens, Opening, part 18. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (you, dog), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

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**Mova's own parse.** This tree may be wrong.

## The tree {#tree}

```conllu
# sent_id = book:pg65965:18:105
# text = “But you cannot swim well,” argued the dog.
1	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	6	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	But	but	CCONJ	CC	_	6	cc	_	_
3	you	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Person=2|PronType=Prs	6	nsubj	_	_
4	can	can	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	6	aux	_	SpaceAfter=No
5	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	6	advmod	_	_
6	swim	swim	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	10	ccomp	_	_
7	well	well	ADV	RB	Degree=Pos	6	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	6	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	6	punct	_	_
10	argued	argue	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
11	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	12	det	_	_
12	dog	dog	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	10	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	10	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **not** **swim** *in a quote* | can | you |  |  |  |  | well *property* | vn run-51.3.2-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 2 | **argue** *speech: disagree* | past | the dog |  |  |  |  |  | vn correspond-36.1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent clause=Topic |

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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:** «The Jade Story Book; Stories from the Orient» by Penrhyn Wingfield Coussens, Project Gutenberg book 65965 (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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