---
title: All at once a thou-sand sav-age men sprang out from among the rocks… — Fifty Famous Stories Retold · tree and pragmatics
description: All at once a thou-sand sav-age men sprang out from among the rocks before us and above us. Who acts: thou. 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 23

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All at once a thou-sand sav-age men sprang out from among the rocks before us and above us.

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**Who acts:** thou · **What happens:** spring out · **To what, where:** rocks

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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 (thou), 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:pg18442:27:23
# text = All at once a thou-sand sav-age men sprang out from among the rocks before us and above us.
1	All	all	DET	DT	PronType=Tot	0	root	_	_
2	at	at	SCONJ	IN	_	12	mark	_	_
3	once	once	ADV	RB	NumForm=Word|NumType=Mult	12	advmod	_	_
4	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	12	det	_	_
5	thou	thou	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=2|PronType=Prs|Style=Arch	12	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	5	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	sand	sand	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	10	compound	_	_
8	sav	sav	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	10	compound	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	8	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	age	age	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	11	compound	_	_
11	men	man	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	12	nsubj	_	_
12	sprang	spring	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	1	advcl	_	_
13	out	out	ADP	RP	_	12	compound:prt	_	_
14	from	from	ADP	IN	_	17	case	_	_
15	among	among	ADP	IN	_	17	case	_	_
16	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	17	det	_	_
17	rocks	rock	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	12	obl	_	_
18	before	before	ADP	IN	_	19	case	_	_
19	us	we	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Plur|Person=1|PronType=Prs	17	nmod	_	_
20	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	22	cc	_	_
21	above	above	ADP	IN	_	22	case	_	_
22	us	we	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Plur|Person=1|PronType=Prs	19	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
23	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	1	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **spring out** | past | thou |  |  | the rocks before us |  | once *property* | vn run-51.3.2 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Theme from rock=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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