---
title: When they were three days from land, the wind failed, and the ships… — Fifty Famous Stories Retold · tree and pragmatics
description: When they were three days from land, the wind failed, and the ships lay floating on the waves. Who acts: ships, wind. A sentence of «Fifty Famous Stories Retold» by James Baldwin, Sir Humphrey Gilbert., with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Fifty Famous Stories Retold, Sir Humphrey Gilbert., sentence 8

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When they were three days from land, the wind failed, and the ships lay floating on the waves.

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**Who acts:** ships, wind · **What happens:** be, fail, lie, float · **To what, where:** three days, land, waves

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This is a sentence of «Fifty Famous Stories Retold» by James Baldwin, Sir Humphrey Gilbert.. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (ships, wind), 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:pg18442:19:8
# text = When they were three days from land, the wind failed, and the ships lay floating on the waves.
1	When	when	ADV	WRB	PronType=Int	5	advmod	_	_
2	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	5	nsubj	_	_
3	were	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	5	cop	_	_
4	three	three	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	5	nummod	_	_
5	days	day	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	0	root	_	_
6	from	from	ADP	IN	_	7	case	_	_
7	land	land	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	11	punct	_	_
9	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	10	det	_	_
10	wind	wind	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	11	nsubj	_	_
11	failed	fail	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	5	parataxis	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	16	punct	_	_
13	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	16	cc	_	_
14	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	15	det	_	_
15	ships	ship	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	16	nsubj	_	_
16	lay	lie	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	11	advcl	_	_
17	floating	float	VERB	VBG	VerbForm=Ger	16	xcomp	_	_
18	on	on	ADP	IN	_	20	case	_	_
19	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	20	det	_	_
20	waves	wave	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	17	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
21	.	.	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 | ships *= ship* | three days |  | land |  |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **fail** | past | the wind |  |  |  |  |  | vn succeed-74-3-1-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 3 | **lie** | past | the ships |  |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 4 | **float** | gerund | the ships *not said here* |  |  | the waves |  |  | vn run-51.3.2-2 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Theme on wave=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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