---
title: When they passed through the gate, they saw the old horse nibbling a… — Fifty Famous Stories Retold · tree and pragmatics
description: When they passed through the gate, they saw the old horse nibbling at the vine. Who acts: judges, old horse. 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 73

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When they passed through the gate, they saw the old horse nibbling at the vine.

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**Who acts:** judges, old horse · **What happens:** pass, see, nibble · **To what, where:** gate, old horse

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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, old horse), 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:pg18442:25:73
# text = When they passed through the gate, they saw the old horse nibbling at the vine.
1	When	when	ADV	WRB	PronType=Int	3	advmod	_	_
2	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	3	nsubj	_	_
3	passed	pass	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	9	advcl	_	_
4	through	through	ADP	IN	_	6	case	_	_
5	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	6	det	_	_
6	gate	gate	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	3	punct	_	_
8	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	9	nsubj	_	_
9	saw	see	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
10	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	12	det	_	_
11	old	old	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	12	amod	_	_
12	horse	horse	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	9	obj	_	_
13	nibbling	nibble	VERB	VBG	VerbForm=Ger	12	acl	_	_
14	at	at	ADP	IN	_	16	case	_	_
15	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	16	det	_	_
16	vine	vine	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	13	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	9	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **pass** | past | judges *= judge* |  |  | the gate |  |  | vn occur-48.3-1 «NP V PP»: agent=Theme through gate=Location |
| 2 | **see** | past | judges *= judge* | the old horse |  |  |  |  | vn comprehend-87.2-1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Experiencer horse=Stimulus |
| 3 | **nibble** | gerund | the old horse *not said here* |  |  |  |  | at the vine | vn chew-39.2 «NP V PP»: agent=Agent at vine=Patient |

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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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