---
title: As he passed along, he found it hard work to keep from stepping in t… — Fifty Famous Stories Retold · tree and pragmatics
description: As he passed along, he found it hard work to keep from stepping in the mud, and soiling his hand-some new shoes. 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 7

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As he passed along, he found it hard work to keep from stepping in the mud, and soiling his hand-some new shoes.

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**Who acts:** beau · **What happens:** pass along, find, keep, step, soil · **To what, where:** cloak, mud, hand

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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:pg18442:20:7
# text = As he passed along, he found it hard work to keep from stepping in the mud, and soiling his hand-some new shoes.
1	As	as	SCONJ	IN	_	3	mark	_	_
2	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	3	nsubj	_	_
3	passed	pass	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	7	advcl	_	_
4	along	along	ADV	RB	_	3	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
5	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	3	punct	_	_
6	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	7	nsubj	_	_
7	found	find	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
8	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	7	obj	_	_
9	hard	hard	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	10	amod	_	_
10	work	work	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	obj	_	_
11	to	to	PART	TO	_	12	mark	_	_
12	keep	keep	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	7	advcl	_	_
13	from	from	SCONJ	IN	_	14	mark	_	_
14	stepping	step	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	12	advcl	_	_
15	in	in	ADP	IN	_	17	case	_	_
16	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	17	det	_	_
17	mud	mud	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	14	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
18	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	20	punct	_	_
19	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	20	cc	_	_
20	soiling	soil	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	7	advcl	_	_
21	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	22	nmod:poss	_	_
22	hand	hand	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	20	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
23	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	22	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
24	some	some	DET	DT	PronType=Ind	26	det	_	_
25	new	new	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	26	amod	_	_
26	shoes	shoe	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	20	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
27	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	7	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **pass along** | past | beau |  |  |  |  | along *property* | vn occur-48.3-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 2 | **find** | past | beau | cloak |  |  |  |  | vn declare-29.4-1-1 «NP V NP ADJ»: agent=Agent it=Theme work=Attribute |
| 3 | **keep** | to-infinitive | beau *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn keep-15.2 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent |
| 4 | **step** | gerund | beau *not said here* |  |  | the mud |  |  | vn run-51.3.2 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Theme in mud=Trajectory |
| 5 | **soil** | gerund | beau *not said here* | beau's hand |  |  |  |  | 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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