---
title: About a hundred years ago there lived a great gen-er-al whose name w… — Fifty Famous Stories Retold · tree and pragmatics
description: About a hundred years ago there lived a great gen-er-al whose name was Na-po'le-on Bo'na-parte. Who acts: name, Na po'le. A sentence of «Fifty Famous Stories Retold» by James Baldwin, How Napoleon Crossed the Alps., with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Fifty Famous Stories Retold, How Napoleon Crossed the Alps., sentence 1

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About a hundred years ago there lived a great gen-er-al whose name was Na-po'le-on Bo'na-parte.

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**Who acts:** name, Na po'le · **What happens:** live, be, name · **To what, where:** great gen er al, Na po'le, Bo'na

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This is a sentence of «Fifty Famous Stories Retold» by James Baldwin, How Napoleon Crossed the Alps.. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (name, Na po'le), 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:pg18442:26:1
# text = About a hundred years ago there lived a great gen-er-al whose name was Na-po'le-on Bo'na-parte.
1	About	about	ADV	RB	_	3	advmod	_	_
2	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	3	det	_	_
3	hundred	hundred	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	4	nummod	_	_
4	years	year	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	7	obl:unmarked	_	_
5	ago	ago	ADV	RB	_	4	advmod	_	_
6	there	there	ADV	RB	PronType=Dem	7	advmod	_	_
7	lived	live	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
8	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	14	det	_	_
9	great	great	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	14	amod	_	_
10	gen	gen	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	14	compound	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	10	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	er	er	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	14	compound	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	14	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	al	al	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	obj	_	_
15	whose	whose	PRON	WP$	Poss=Yes|PronType=Rel	16	nmod:poss	_	_
16	name	name	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	20	nsubj	_	_
17	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	20	cop	_	_
18	Na	Na	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	20	compound	_	SpaceAfter=No
19	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	20	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
20	po'le	po'le	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	14	parataxis	_	SpaceAfter=No
21	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	23	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
22	on	on	ADP	IN	_	23	case	_	_
23	Bo'na	Bo'na	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	20	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
24	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	25	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
25	parte	parte	X	FW	Foreign=Yes	23	dep	_	SpaceAfter=No
26	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	7	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **live** | past |  | a great gen er al |  | there | year |  | vn lodge-46 «NP V ADV»: agent=Theme al=Location |
| 2 | **is a** | past | Na po'le's name | Na po'le |  | Bo'na |  |  | tree rules |
| 3 | **name** |  | Na po'le |  |  |  |  |  | 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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