---
title: "We are rolling stones up-hill to make the sun rise," said one of th… — Fifty Famous Stories Retold · tree and pragmatics
description: "We are rolling stones up-hill to make the sun rise," said one of the old men. Who acts: We, sun, one. A sentence of «Fifty Famous Stories Retold» by James Baldwin, Other Wise Men of Gotham., with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Fifty Famous Stories Retold, Other Wise Men of Gotham., sentence 32

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"We are rolling stones up-hill to make the sun rise," said one of the old men.

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**Who acts:** We, sun, one · **What happens:** roll, make, rise, say · **To what, where:** stones, hill · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «Fifty Famous Stories Retold» by James Baldwin, Other Wise 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 (We, sun, one), 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:pg18442:15:32
# text = "We are rolling stones up-hill to make the sun rise," said one of the old men.
1	"	"	PUNCT	``	_	4	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	We	we	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=1|PronType=Prs	4	nsubj	_	_
3	are	be	AUX	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=1|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	4	aux	_	_
4	rolling	roll	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	16	ccomp	_	_
5	stones	stone	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	4	obj	_	_
6	up	up	ADP	IN	_	8	case	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	6	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	hill	hill	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	nmod	_	_
9	to	to	PART	TO	_	10	mark	_	_
10	make	make	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	4	advcl	_	_
11	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	12	det	_	_
12	sun	sun	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	13	nsubj	_	_
13	rise	rise	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	10	xcomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	4	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	"	"	PUNCT	''	_	4	punct	_	_
16	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
17	one	one	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	16	nsubj	_	_
18	of	of	ADP	IN	_	21	case	_	_
19	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	21	det	_	_
20	old	old	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	21	amod	_	_
21	men	man	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	17	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
22	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	16	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **roll** *in a quote* | present · progressive | We | stones |  | hill |  |  | vn run-51.3.2-2 «NP V NP PP.trajectory»: agent=Agent stone=Theme up hill=Trajectory |
| 2 | **make** *in a quote* | to-infinitive | We *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 3 | **rise** *in a quote* | infinitive | the sun |  |  |  |  |  | vn assuming\_position-50 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 4 | **say** *speech: assert* | past | one of the old men |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent clause=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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