---
title: He soon came to a field where a number of men were building a stone… — Fifty Famous Stories Retold · tree and pragmatics
description: He soon came to a field where a number of men were building a stone wall. Who acts: world, number. 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 43

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He soon came to a field where a number of men were building a stone wall.

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**Who acts:** world, number · **What happens:** come, build · **To what, where:** field, stone wall

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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 (world, number), 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:pg18442:15:43
# text = He soon came to a field where a number of men were building a stone wall.
1	He	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	3	nsubj	_	_
2	soon	soon	ADV	RB	Degree=Pos	3	advmod	_	_
3	came	come	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
4	to	to	ADP	IN	_	6	case	_	_
5	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	6	det	_	_
6	field	field	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	obl	_	_
7	where	where	ADV	WRB	PronType=Rel	13	advmod	_	_
8	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	9	det	_	_
9	number	number	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	13	nsubj	_	_
10	of	of	ADP	IN	_	11	case	_	_
11	men	man	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	9	nmod	_	_
12	were	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	13	aux	_	_
13	building	build	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	6	acl	_	_
14	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	16	det	_	_
15	stone	stone	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	16	compound	_	_
16	wall	wall	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	13	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **come** | past | world |  |  | a field |  | soon *property* | vn escape-51.1-1 «NP V PP.initial\_location»: agent=Theme to field=Initial\_Location |
| 2 | **build** | past · progressive | a number of men | a stone wall |  |  |  |  | vn build-26.1-1 «NP.asset V NP»: agent=Asset wall=Product |

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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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