---
title: The white-haired Fathers who made the laws for the city came to see… — Fifty Famous Stories Retold · tree and pragmatics
description: The white-haired Fathers who made the laws for the city came to see him. Who acts: white haired Fathers. A sentence of «Fifty Famous Stories Retold» by James Baldwin, The Story of Regulus., with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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

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The white-haired Fathers who made the laws for the city came to see him.

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**Who acts:** white haired Fathers · **What happens:** make, come, see · **To what, where:** laws, Regulus

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This is a sentence of «Fifty Famous Stories Retold» by James Baldwin, The Story of Regulus.. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (white haired Fathers), 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:pg18442:28:22
# text = The white-haired Fathers who made the laws for the city came to see him.
1	The	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	5	det	_	_
2	white	white	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	5	amod	_	SpaceAfter=No
3	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	2	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
4	haired	haired	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	5	amod	_	_
5	Fathers	father	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	13	nsubj	_	_
6	who	who	PRON	WP	PronType=Rel	7	nsubj	_	_
7	made	make	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	5	acl:relcl	_	_
8	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	9	det	_	_
9	laws	law	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	7	obj	_	_
10	for	for	ADP	IN	_	12	case	_	_
11	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	12	det	_	_
12	city	city	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	obl	_	_
13	came	come	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
14	to	to	PART	TO	_	15	mark	_	_
15	see	see	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	13	advcl	_	_
16	him	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	15	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	13	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **make** | past | the white haired Fathers | the laws |  |  |  | for the city | vn build-26.1-1 «NP V NP P.asset»: agent=Agent law=Product for city=Asset |
| 2 | **come** | past | the white haired Fathers |  |  |  |  |  | vn escape-51.1-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 3 | **see** | to-infinitive | the white haired Fathers *not said here* | Regulus |  |  |  |  | vn comprehend-87.2-1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Experiencer he=Stimulus |

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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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