---
title: Many years ago a proud tyrant, whose name was Gessler, ruled over th… — Fifty Famous Stories Retold · tree and pragmatics
description: Many years ago a proud tyrant, whose name was Gessler, ruled over them, and made their lot a bitter one indeed. Who acts: name, Gessler. A sentence of «Fifty Famous Stories Retold» by James Baldwin, The Story of William Tell., with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Fifty Famous Stories Retold, The Story of William Tell., sentence 2

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Many years ago a proud tyrant, whose name was Gessler, ruled over them, and made their lot a bitter one indeed.

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**Who acts:** name, Gessler · **What happens:** be, rule, make, name · **To what, where:** Gessler, lot

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This is a sentence of «Fifty Famous Stories Retold» by James Baldwin, The Story of William Tell.. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (name, Gessler), 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:pg18442:23:2
# text = Many years ago a proud tyrant, whose name was Gessler, ruled over them, and made their lot a bitter one indeed.
1	Many	many	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	2	amod	_	_
2	years	year	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	3	obl:unmarked	_	_
3	ago	ago	ADV	RB	_	13	advmod	_	_
4	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	6	det	_	_
5	proud	proud	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	6	amod	_	_
6	tyrant	tyrant	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	11	punct	_	_
8	whose	whose	PRON	WP$	Poss=Yes|PronType=Rel	9	nmod:poss	_	_
9	name	name	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	11	nsubj	_	_
10	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	11	cop	_	_
11	Gessler	Gessler	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	6	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	13	punct	_	_
13	ruled	rule	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
14	over	over	ADP	IN	_	15	case	_	_
15	them	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	13	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	18	punct	_	_
17	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	18	cc	_	_
18	made	make	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	13	conj	_	_
19	their	their	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Plur|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	20	nmod:poss	_	_
20	lot	lot	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	18	obj	_	_
21	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	23	det	_	_
22	bitter	bitter	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	23	amod	_	_
23	one	one	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	18	xcomp	_	_
24	indeed	indeed	ADV	RB	_	18	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
25	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	13	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is a** | past | Gessler's name | Gessler |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **rule** | past |  |  |  |  |  | over people; ago *property* | vn dub-29.3.2 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent |
| 3 | **make** | past |  | people's lot |  |  |  | indeed *property* | vn build-26.1-1 «NP.asset V NP»: agent=Asset lot=Product |
| 4 | **name** |  | Gessler |  |  |  |  |  | nom name «communication transitive»: poss=agent |

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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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