---
title: But in those days it was thought to be a noble thing to till the soil. — Fifty Famous Stories Retold · tree and pragmatics
description: But in those days it was thought to be a noble thing to till the soil. 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 4

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But in those days it was thought to be a noble thing to till the soil.

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**What happens:** think, be, till · **To what, where:** work, noble thing, soil · **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: 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:pg18442:27:4
# text = But in those days it was thought to be a noble thing to till the soil.
1	But	but	CCONJ	CC	_	7	cc	_	_
2	in	in	ADP	IN	_	4	case	_	_
3	those	that	DET	DT	Number=Plur|PronType=Dem	4	det	_	_
4	days	day	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	7	obl	_	_
5	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	7	nsubj:pass	_	_
6	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	7	aux:pass	_	_
7	thought	think	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	0	root	_	_
8	to	to	PART	TO	_	12	mark	_	_
9	be	be	AUX	VB	VerbForm=Inf	12	cop	_	_
10	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	12	det	_	_
11	noble	noble	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	12	amod	_	_
12	thing	thing	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	ccomp	_	_
13	to	to	PART	TO	_	14	mark	_	_
14	till	till	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	12	acl	_	_
15	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	16	det	_	_
16	soil	soil	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	14	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	7	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **think** *speech: other* | past · passive |  | work |  |  | day |  | vn wish-62 «NP V NP»: subject=Theme |
| 2 | **is a** | to-infinitive |  | a noble thing |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 3 | **till** | to-infinitive |  | the soil |  |  |  |  | tree rules |

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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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