---
title: As he was thinking what he should do, he happened to look up. — Fifty Famous Stories Retold · tree and pragmatics
description: As he was thinking what he should do, he happened to look up. Who acts: beau. A sentence of «Fifty Famous Stories Retold» by James Baldwin, Sir Walter Raleigh., with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Fifty Famous Stories Retold, Sir Walter Raleigh., sentence 11

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As he was thinking what he should do, he happened to look up.

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**Who acts:** beau · **What happens:** think, do, happen, look up · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «Fifty Famous Stories Retold» by James Baldwin, Sir Walter Raleigh.. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (beau), 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:pg18442:20:11
# text = As he was thinking what he should do, he happened to look up.
1	As	as	SCONJ	IN	_	4	mark	_	_
2	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	4	nsubj	_	_
3	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	4	aux	_	_
4	thinking	think	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	11	advcl	_	_
5	what	what	PRON	WP	PronType=Int	8	obj	_	_
6	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	8	nsubj	_	_
7	should	should	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	8	aux	_	_
8	do	do	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	4	ccomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	4	punct	_	_
10	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	11	nsubj	_	_
11	happened	happen	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
12	to	to	PART	TO	_	13	mark	_	_
13	look	look	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	11	xcomp	_	_
14	up	up	ADP	RP	_	13	compound:prt	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	11	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **think** *speech: other* | past · progressive | beau |  |  |  |  |  | vn consider-29.9-2 «NP V how S»: agent=Agent clause=Theme |
| 2 | **do** | should | beau |  |  |  |  |  | vn act-114-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent what=Eventuality |
| 3 | **happen** | past | beau |  |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 4 | **look up** | to-infinitive | beau *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn stimulus\_subject-30.4 «NP V PP.attribute»: agent=Stimulus |

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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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