---
title: We tried to come back; but they had blocked up the way on this side… — Fifty Famous Stories Retold · tree and pragmatics
description: We tried to come back; but they had blocked up the way on this side of us too. Who acts: We, mountains. 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 25

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We tried to come back; but they had blocked up the way on this side of us too.

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**Who acts:** We, mountains · **What happens:** try, come back, block up · **To what, where:** way, side

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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 (We, mountains), 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:pg18442:27:25
# text = We tried to come back; but they had blocked up the way on this side of us too.
1	We	we	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=1|PronType=Prs	2	nsubj	_	_
2	tried	try	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	to	to	PART	TO	_	4	mark	_	_
4	come	come	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	2	xcomp	_	_
5	back	back	ADV	RB	_	4	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	;	;	PUNCT	:	_	2	punct	_	_
7	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	10	cc	_	_
8	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	10	nsubj	_	_
9	had	have	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	10	aux	_	_
10	blocked	block	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part	2	conj	_	_
11	up	up	ADP	RP	_	10	compound:prt	_	_
12	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	13	det	_	_
13	way	way	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	10	obl:unmarked	_	_
14	on	on	ADP	IN	_	16	case	_	_
15	this	this	DET	DT	Number=Sing|PronType=Dem	16	det	_	_
16	side	side	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	10	obl	_	_
17	of	of	ADP	IN	_	18	case	_	_
18	us	we	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Plur|Person=1|PronType=Prs	16	nmod	_	_
19	too	too	ADV	RB	_	10	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
20	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **try** | past | We |  |  |  |  |  | vn try-61.1 «NP V S\_INF»: agent=Agent clause=Eventuality |
| 2 | **come back** *not said to happen* | to-infinitive | We *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn escape-51.1-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 3 | **block up** | past · perfect | mountains *= mountain* | the way |  | this side of us |  |  | vn concealment-16 «NP V NP PP.location»: agent=Agent on side=Location |

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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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