---
title: Cincinnatus was in the field plowing when the men who had been sent… — Fifty Famous Stories Retold · tree and pragmatics
description: Cincinnatus was in the field plowing when the men who had been sent to him came in great haste. Who acts: Cincinnatus, field, men. A sentence of «Fifty Famous Stories Retold» by James Baldwin, The Story of Cincinnatus., with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

<!-- md -->
[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg18442/27/35/)

<!-- crumbs -->
[home](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) / [corpora](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/) / [tales](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/) / [Fifty Famous Stories Retold](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg18442/) / [The Story of Cincinnatus.](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg18442/27/) / 35

# Fifty Famous Stories Retold, The Story of Cincinnatus., sentence 35

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
Cincinnatus was in the field plowing when the men who had been sent to him came in great haste.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** Cincinnatus, field, men · **What happens:** be, plow, send, come · **To what, where:** field, men, Cincinnatus, great haste

<!-- .vabout -->
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 (Cincinnatus, field, men), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

<!-- .note-en -->
**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:pg18442:27:35
# text = Cincinnatus was in the field plowing when the men who had been sent to him came in great haste.
1	Cincinnatus	cincinnatus	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	nsubj	_	_
2	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	5	cop	_	_
3	in	in	ADP	IN	_	5	case	_	_
4	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	5	det	_	_
5	field	field	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	0	root	_	_
6	plowing	plow	VERB	VBG	VerbForm=Ger	5	acl	_	_
7	when	when	ADV	WRB	PronType=Int	16	advmod	_	_
8	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	9	det	_	_
9	men	man	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	16	nsubj	_	_
10	who	who	PRON	WP	PronType=Rel	13	nsubj:pass	_	_
11	had	have	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	13	aux	_	_
12	been	be	AUX	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part	13	aux:pass	_	_
13	sent	send	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	9	acl:relcl	_	_
14	to	to	ADP	IN	_	15	case	_	_
15	him	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	13	obl	_	_
16	came	come	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	6	advcl	_	_
17	in	in	ADP	IN	_	19	case	_	_
18	great	great	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	19	amod	_	_
19	haste	haste	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	16	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
20	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	5	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is** | past | Cincinnatus |  |  | the field |  |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **plow** | gerund | the field *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn wipe\_instr-10.4.2-1 «NP.agent V»: agent=Agent |
| 3 | **send** | past · perfect · passive |  | the men | Cincinnatus |  |  |  | vn confine-92-1 «NP V NP PP.destination»: subject=Theme to he=Destination |
| 4 | **come** | past | the men |  |  | great haste |  |  | vn appear-48.1.1 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Theme in haste=Location |

<!-- .note -->
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.

<!-- div src -->

**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.

<!-- /div -->

<!-- pn -->
- ← previous: [sentence 34](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg18442/27/34/)
- next →: [sentence 36](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg18442/27/36/)
- ↑ back to [The Story of Cincinnatus.](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg18442/27/)