---
title: The soldiers would burn the towns, they would rob the farmers of the… — Fifty Famous Stories Retold · tree and pragmatics
description: The soldiers would burn the towns, they would rob the farmers of their grain and sheep, they would make slaves of the people. Who acts: soldiers. A sentence of «Fifty Famous Stories Retold» by James Baldwin, Arnold Winkelried., with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Fifty Famous Stories Retold, Arnold Winkelried., sentence 3

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The soldiers would burn the towns, they would rob the farmers of their grain and sheep, they would make slaves of the people.

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**Who acts:** soldiers · **What happens:** burn, rob, make · **To what, where:** towns, farmers, slaves

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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), 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:pg18442:24:3
# text = The soldiers would burn the towns, they would rob the farmers of their grain and sheep, they would make slaves of the people.
1	The	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	2	det	_	_
2	soldiers	soldier	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	4	nsubj	_	_
3	would	would	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	4	aux	_	_
4	burn	burn	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	0	root	_	_
5	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	6	det	_	_
6	towns	town	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	4	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	10	punct	_	_
8	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	10	nsubj	_	_
9	would	would	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	10	aux	_	_
10	rob	rob	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	4	conj	_	_
11	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	12	det	_	_
12	farmers	farmer	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	10	obj	_	_
13	of	of	ADP	IN	_	15	case	_	_
14	their	their	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Plur|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	15	nmod:poss	_	_
15	grain	grain	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	12	nmod	_	_
16	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	17	cc	_	_
17	sheep	sheep	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	15	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
18	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	21	punct	_	_
19	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	21	nsubj	_	_
20	would	would	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	21	aux	_	_
21	make	make	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	4	parataxis	_	_
22	slaves	slave	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	21	obj	_	_
23	of	of	ADP	IN	_	25	case	_	_
24	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	25	det	_	_
25	people	people	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	22	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
26	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **burn** | would | the soldiers | the towns |  |  |  |  | vn light\_emission-43.1 «NP V NP.theme»: agent=Agent town=Theme |
| 2 | **rob** | would | soldiers *= soldier* | the farmers of soldiers's grain and sheep |  |  |  |  | vn cheat-10.6.1-1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent farmer=Source |
| 3 | **make** | would | soldiers *= soldier* | slaves of the people |  |  |  |  | vn build-26.1-1 «NP.asset V NP»: agent=Asset slave=Product |

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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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- ↑ back to [Arnold Winkelried.](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg18442/24/)