---
title: One rainy day, Bruce lay on the ground under a rude shed, lis-ten-in… — Fifty Famous Stories Retold · tree and pragmatics
description: One rainy day, Bruce lay on the ground under a rude shed, lis-ten-ing to the patter of the drops on the roof above him. Who acts: Bruce, lis, drops. A sentence of «Fifty Famous Stories Retold» by James Baldwin, Bruce and the Spider., with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Fifty Famous Stories Retold, Bruce and the Spider., sentence 7

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One rainy day, Bruce lay on the ground under a rude shed, lis-ten-ing to the patter of the drops on the roof above him.

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**Who acts:** Bruce, lis, drops · **What happens:** lie, e, patter · **To what, where:** ground

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This is a sentence of «Fifty Famous Stories Retold» by James Baldwin, Bruce and the Spider.. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Bruce, lis, drops), 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:pg18442:12:7
# text = One rainy day, Bruce lay on the ground under a rude shed, lis-ten-ing to the patter of the drops on the roof above him.
1	One	one	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	3	nummod	_	_
2	rainy	rainy	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	3	amod	_	_
3	day	day	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	obl:unmarked	_	SpaceAfter=No
4	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	3	punct	_	_
5	Bruce	Bruce	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	6	nsubj	_	_
6	lay	lie	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
7	on	on	ADP	IN	_	9	case	_	_
8	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	9	det	_	_
9	ground	ground	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	obl	_	_
10	under	under	ADP	IN	_	13	case	_	_
11	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	13	det	_	_
12	rude	rude	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	13	amod	_	_
13	shed	shed	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	19	punct	_	_
15	lis	lis	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	19	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	15	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	ten	ten	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	19	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
18	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	17	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
19	ing	e	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	6	advcl	_	_
20	to	to	ADP	IN	_	22	case	_	_
21	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	22	det	_	_
22	patter	patter	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	19	obl	_	_
23	of	of	ADP	IN	_	25	case	_	_
24	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	25	det	_	_
25	drops	drop	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	22	nmod	_	_
26	on	on	ADP	IN	_	28	case	_	_
27	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	28	det	_	_
28	roof	roof	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	25	nmod	_	_
29	above	above	ADP	IN	_	30	case	_	_
30	him	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	28	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
31	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	6	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **lie** | past | Bruce |  |  | the ground | day | under a rude shed | vn assuming\_position-50 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Agent on ground=Location |
| 2 | **e** | gerund | lis |  |  |  |  | to the patter of the drops on the roof above Bruce | tree rules |
| 3 | **patter** |  | the drops on the roof above Bruce |  |  |  |  |  | nom patter «communication intransitive»: of=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.

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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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