---
title: But the waves were dashing over it, and in a little while it too wou… — Fifty Famous Stories Retold · tree and pragmatics
description: But the waves were dashing over it, and in a little while it too would be carried to the bottom. Who acts: waves. A sentence of «Fifty Famous Stories Retold» by James Baldwin, Grace Darling., with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Fifty Famous Stories Retold, Grace Darling., sentence 6

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But the waves were dashing over it, and in a little while it too would be carried to the bottom.

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**Who acts:** waves · **What happens:** dash, carry · **To what, where:** half, little

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This is a sentence of «Fifty Famous Stories Retold» by James Baldwin, Grace Darling.. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (waves), 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:pg18442:22:6
# text = But the waves were dashing over it, and in a little while it too would be carried to the bottom.
1	But	but	CCONJ	CC	_	5	cc	_	_
2	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	3	det	_	_
3	waves	wave	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	5	nsubj	_	_
4	were	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	5	aux	_	_
5	dashing	dash	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	0	root	_	_
6	over	over	ADP	IN	_	7	case	_	_
7	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	5	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	18	punct	_	_
9	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	18	cc	_	_
10	in	in	ADP	IN	_	12	case	_	_
11	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	12	det	_	_
12	little	little	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	18	obl	_	_
13	while	while	SCONJ	IN	_	14	mark	_	_
14	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	12	advcl	_	_
15	too	too	ADV	RB	_	12	advmod	_	_
16	would	would	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	18	aux	_	_
17	be	be	AUX	VB	VerbForm=Inf	18	aux:pass	_	_
18	carried	carry	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	5	advcl	_	_
19	to	to	ADP	IN	_	21	case	_	_
20	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	21	det	_	_
21	bottom	bottom	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	18	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
22	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	5	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **dash** | past · progressive | the waves |  |  | half |  |  | vn run-51.3.2-2 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Theme over it=Trajectory |
| 2 | **carry** | would · passive | the waves *not said here* |  |  | a little |  | to the bottom | vn carry-11.4 «NP V NP PP.destination»: to bottom=Destination |

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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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