---
title: Then they beat with their sticks on the ground as though there had b… — Fifty Famous Stories Retold · tree and pragmatics
description: Then they beat with their sticks on the ground as though there had been a hundred sheep between them. Who acts: stories. A sentence of «Fifty Famous Stories Retold» by James Baldwin, Three Men of Gotham., with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Fifty Famous Stories Retold, Three Men of Gotham., sentence 13

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Then they beat with their sticks on the ground as though there had been a hundred sheep between them.

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**Who acts:** stories · **What happens:** beat, be · **To what, where:** ground, hundred sheep

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This is a sentence of «Fifty Famous Stories Retold» by James Baldwin, Three Men of Gotham.. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (stories), 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:pg18442:14:13
# text = Then they beat with their sticks on the ground as though there had been a hundred sheep between them.
1	Then	then	ADV	RB	PronType=Dem	3	advmod	_	_
2	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	3	nsubj	_	_
3	beat	beat	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
4	with	with	ADP	IN	_	6	case	_	_
5	their	their	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Plur|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	6	nmod:poss	_	_
6	sticks	stick	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	3	obl	_	_
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	3	obl	_	_
10	as	as	ADV	RB	_	17	advmod	_	_
11	though	though	SCONJ	IN	_	17	mark	_	_
12	there	there	PRON	EX	PronType=Dem	14	expl	_	_
13	had	have	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	14	aux	_	_
14	been	be	AUX	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part	17	cop	_	_
15	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	16	det	_	_
16	hundred	hundred	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	17	nummod	_	_
17	sheep	sheep	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	3	obl	_	_
18	between	between	ADP	IN	_	19	case	_	_
19	them	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	17	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
20	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **beat** | present | stories *= story* |  |  | the ground | then | with stories's sticks | vn sound\_emission-43.2 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Theme on ground=Location |
| 2 | **is a** | participle |  | hundred sheep |  |  |  | between stories *= story* | tree rules |

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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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