---
title: They wondered who it could be who would ring the bell at such a time. — Fifty Famous Stories Retold · tree and pragmatics
description: They wondered who it could be who would ring the bell at such a time. Who acts: judges. A sentence of «Fifty Famous Stories Retold» by James Baldwin, The Bell of Atri., with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Fifty Famous Stories Retold, The Bell of Atri., sentence 72

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They wondered who it could be who would ring the bell at such a time.

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**Who acts:** judges · **What happens:** wonder, be · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «Fifty Famous Stories Retold» by James Baldwin, The Bell of Atri.. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (judges), 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:pg18442:25:72
# text = They wondered who it could be who would ring the bell at such a time.
1	They	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	2	nsubj	_	_
2	wondered	wonder	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	who	who	PRON	WP	PronType=Rel	9	nsubj	_	_
4	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	9	nsubj	_	_
5	could	could	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	9	aux	_	_
6	be	be	AUX	VB	VerbForm=Inf	9	cop	_	_
7	who	who	PRON	WP	PronType=Rel	9	nsubj	_	_
8	would	would	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	9	aux	_	_
9	ring	ring	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	2	ccomp	_	_
10	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	11	det	_	_
11	bell	bell	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	9	obj	_	_
12	at	at	ADP	IN	_	15	case	_	_
13	such	such	DET	PDT	PronType=Ind	15	det:predet	_	_
14	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	15	det	_	_
15	time	time	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	9	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **wonder** *speech: ask* | past | judges *= judge* |  |  |  |  |  | vn care-88.1-1 «NP V what S»: agent=Experiencer clause=Stimulus |
| 2 | **is** | would |  |  |  |  | time | ring *property* | 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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