---
title: The soldiers moved stead-i-ly onward; their shields lapped over one… — Fifty Famous Stories Retold · tree and pragmatics
description: The soldiers moved stead-i-ly onward; their shields lapped over one another; their thousand spears looked like so many long bris-tles in the sun-light. Who acts: soldiers, shields, thousand spears. A sentence of «Fifty Famous Stories Retold» by James Baldwin, Arnold Winkelried., with its dependency 
---

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# Fifty Famous Stories Retold, Arnold Winkelried., sentence 16

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The soldiers moved stead-i-ly onward; their shields lapped over one another; their thousand spears looked like so many long bris-tles in the sun-light.

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**Who acts:** soldiers, shields, thousand spears · **What happens:** move, lap, look · **To what, where:** stead, one

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This is a sentence of «Fifty Famous Stories Retold» by James Baldwin, Arnold Winkelried.. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (soldiers, shields, thousand spears), 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:pg18442:24:16
# text = The soldiers moved stead-i-ly onward; their shields lapped over one another; their thousand spears looked like so many long bris-tles in the sun-light.
1	The	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	2	det	_	_
2	soldiers	soldier	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	3	nsubj	_	_
3	moved	move	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
4	stead	stead	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
5	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	9	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	i	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	9	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	9	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	ly	ly	ADV	RB	_	9	advmod	_	_
9	onward	onward	ADV	RB	_	4	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	;	;	PUNCT	,	_	13	punct	_	_
11	their	their	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Plur|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	12	nmod:poss	_	_
12	shields	shield	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	13	nsubj	_	_
13	lapped	lap	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	3	conj	_	_
14	over	over	ADP	IN	_	15	case	_	_
15	one	one	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	13	obj	_	_
16	another	another	DET	DT	PronType=Ind	15	fixed	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	;	;	PUNCT	,	_	21	punct	_	_
18	their	their	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Plur|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	20	nmod:poss	_	_
19	thousand	thousand	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	20	nummod	_	_
20	spears	spear	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	21	nsubj	_	_
21	looked	look	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	3	conj	_	_
22	like	like	ADP	IN	_	28	case	_	_
23	so	so	ADV	RB	_	24	advmod	_	_
24	many	many	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	28	amod	_	_
25	long	long	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	28	amod	_	_
26	bris	bris	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	28	compound	_	SpaceAfter=No
27	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	26	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
28	tles	tle	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	21	obl	_	_
29	in	in	ADP	IN	_	33	case	_	_
30	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	33	det	_	_
31	sun	sun	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	33	compound	_	SpaceAfter=No
32	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	31	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
33	light	light	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	28	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
34	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **move** | past | the soldiers | stead |  |  |  |  | vn roll-51.3.1 «NP V NP.theme»: agent=Agent stead=Theme |
| 2 | **lap** | past | soldiers's shields | one |  |  |  |  | vn chew-39.2 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent one=Patient |
| 3 | **look** | past | soldiers's thousand spears |  |  |  |  | like many long bris tles in the sun light | 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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