---
title: "Only yes-ter-day," they said, "our army was marching through a narr… — Fifty Famous Stories Retold · tree and pragmatics
description: "Only yes-ter-day," they said, "our army was marching through a narrow valley between two steep mountains. Who acts: mountains, army. A sentence of «Fifty Famous Stories Retold» by James Baldwin, The Story of Cincinnatus., with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Fifty Famous Stories Retold, The Story of Cincinnatus., sentence 22

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"Only yes-ter-day," they said, "our army was marching through a narrow valley between two steep mountains.

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**Who acts:** mountains, army · **What happens:** say, march · **To what, where:** narrow valley · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «Fifty Famous Stories Retold» by James Baldwin, The Story of Cincinnatus.. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (mountains, army), 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:pg18442:27:22
# text = "Only yes-ter-day," they said, "our army was marching through a narrow valley between two steep mountains.
1	"	"	PUNCT	``	_	7	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	Only	only	ADV	RB	_	7	advmod	_	_
3	yes	yes	INTJ	UH	Polarity=Pos	7	discourse	_	SpaceAfter=No
4	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	3	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
5	ter	ter	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	compound	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	5	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	day	day	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	11	obl:unmarked	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	7	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	"	"	PUNCT	''	_	7	punct	_	_
10	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	11	nsubj	_	_
11	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	17	punct	_	_
13	"	"	PUNCT	``	_	17	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	our	our	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Plur|Person=1|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	15	nmod:poss	_	_
15	army	army	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	17	nsubj	_	_
16	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	17	aux	_	_
17	marching	march	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	11	ccomp	_	_
18	through	through	ADP	IN	_	21	case	_	_
19	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	21	det	_	_
20	narrow	narrow	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	21	amod	_	_
21	valley	valley	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	17	obl	_	_
22	between	between	ADP	IN	_	25	case	_	_
23	two	two	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	25	nummod	_	_
24	steep	steep	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	25	amod	_	_
25	mountains	mountain	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	17	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
26	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	11	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **say** *speech: assert* | past | mountains *= mountain* |  |  |  | day |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent clause=Topic |
| 2 | **march** *in a quote* | past · progressive | our army |  |  | a narrow valley |  | between two steep mountains | vn run-51.3.2-2-1 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Theme through valley=Trajectory |

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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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