---
title: They were the Black Douglas and his men, creeping on hands and feet… — Fifty Famous Stories Retold · tree and pragmatics
description: They were the Black Douglas and his men, creeping on hands and feet toward the foot of the castle wall. Who acts: objects, Black Douglas. A sentence of «Fifty Famous Stories Retold» by James Baldwin, The Black Douglas., with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Fifty Famous Stories Retold, The Black Douglas., sentence 21

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They were the Black Douglas and his men, creeping on hands and feet toward the foot of the castle wall.

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**Who acts:** objects, Black Douglas · **What happens:** be, creep · **To what, where:** Black Douglas, hands

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This is a sentence of «Fifty Famous Stories Retold» by James Baldwin, The Black Douglas.. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (objects, Black Douglas), 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:pg18442:13:21
# text = They were the Black Douglas and his men, creeping on hands and feet toward the foot of the castle wall.
1	They	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	5	nsubj	_	_
2	were	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	5	cop	_	_
3	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	5	det	_	_
4	Black	Black	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	5	compound	_	_
5	Douglas	Douglas	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	0	root	_	_
6	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	8	cc	_	_
7	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	8	nmod:poss	_	_
8	men	man	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	5	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	10	punct	_	_
10	creeping	creep	VERB	VBG	VerbForm=Ger	5	acl	_	_
11	on	on	ADP	IN	_	12	case	_	_
12	hands	hand	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	10	obl	_	_
13	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	14	cc	_	_
14	feet	foot	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	12	conj	_	_
15	toward	toward	ADP	IN	_	17	case	_	_
16	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	17	det	_	_
17	foot	foot	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	10	obl	_	_
18	of	of	ADP	IN	_	21	case	_	_
19	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	21	det	_	_
20	castle	castle	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	21	compound	_	_
21	wall	wall	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	17	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
22	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	5	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is a** | past | objects *= object* | the Black Douglas and Douglas's men |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **creep** | gerund | the Black Douglas and Douglas's men *not said here* |  |  | hands and feet |  | toward the foot of the castle wall | vn run-51.3.2 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Theme on hand=Trajectory |

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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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