---
title: Long after he was dead, men liked to talk about his deeds. — Fifty Famous Stories Retold · tree and pragmatics
description: Long after he was dead, men liked to talk about his deeds. Who acts: Robin, men. A sentence of «Fifty Famous Stories Retold» by James Baldwin, A Story of Robin Hood., with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Fifty Famous Stories Retold, A Story of Robin Hood., sentence 12

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Long after he was dead, men liked to talk about his deeds.

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**Who acts:** Robin, men · **What happens:** be, like, talk

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This is a sentence of «Fifty Famous Stories Retold» by James Baldwin, A Story of Robin Hood.. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Robin, men), 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:pg18442:11:12
# text = Long after he was dead, men liked to talk about his deeds.
1	Long	long	ADV	RB	Degree=Pos	8	advmod	_	_
2	after	after	ADP	IN	_	5	case	_	_
3	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	5	nsubj	_	_
4	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	5	cop	_	_
5	dead	dead	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	1	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	1	punct	_	_
7	men	man	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	8	nsubj	_	_
8	liked	like	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
9	to	to	PART	TO	_	10	mark	_	_
10	talk	talk	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	8	xcomp	_	_
11	about	about	ADP	IN	_	13	case	_	_
12	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	13	nmod:poss	_	_
13	deeds	deed	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	10	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	8	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is** | past | Robin |  |  |  |  | dead *property* | tree rules |
| 2 | **like** | past | men |  |  |  |  | long *property* | vn want-32.1-1-1 «NP V NP S\_INF»: agent=Pivot clause=Theme |
| 3 | **talk** *not said to happen* | to-infinitive | men *not said here* |  |  |  |  | about Robin's deeds | vn talk-37.5 «NP V PP.topic»: agent=Agent about deed=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:** «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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