---
title: He swam and swam, doing his best to keep from sinking. — The Jade Story Book; Stories from the Orient · tree and pragmatics
description: He swam and swam, doing his best to keep from sinking. Who acts: life. A sentence of «The Jade Story Book; Stories from the Orient» by Penrhyn Wingfield Coussens, Opening, part 8, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Jade Story Book; Stories from the Orient, Opening, part 8, sentence 107

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He swam and swam, doing his best to keep from sinking.

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**Who acts:** life · **What happens:** swim, do, keep, sink · **To what, where:** best

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This is a sentence of «The Jade Story Book; Stories from the Orient» by Penrhyn Wingfield Coussens, Opening, part 8. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (life), 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:pg65965:8:109
# text = He swam and swam, doing his best to keep from sinking.
1	He	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	2	nsubj	_	_
2	swam	swim	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	4	cc	_	_
4	swam	swim	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	2	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
5	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	6	punct	_	_
6	doing	do	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	4	advcl	_	_
7	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	8	nmod:poss	_	_
8	best	good	ADJ	JJS	Degree=Sup	6	obj	_	_
9	to	to	PART	TO	_	10	mark	_	_
10	keep	keep	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	6	advcl	_	_
11	from	from	SCONJ	IN	_	12	mark	_	_
12	sinking	sink	VERB	VBG	VerbForm=Ger	10	advcl	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **swim** | past | life |  |  |  |  |  | vn run-51.3.2-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 2 | **swim** | past | life *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn run-51.3.2-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 3 | **do** | gerund | life *not said here* | life's best |  |  |  |  | vn act-114-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent good=Eventuality |
| 4 | **keep** | to-infinitive | life *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn keep-15.2 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent |
| 5 | **sink** | gerund | life *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn other\_cos-45.4 «NP.patient V»: agent=Patient |

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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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