---
title: True, we have been beaten in a few battles, but our army is gaining… — Fifty Famous Stories Retold · tree and pragmatics
description: True, we have been beaten in a few battles, but our army is gaining ground every day. Who acts: army. 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 26

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True, we have been beaten in a few battles, but our army is gaining ground every day.

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**Who acts:** army · **What happens:** beat, gain · **To what, where:** we, ground

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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 (army), 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:pg18442:28:26
# text = True, we have been beaten in a few battles, but our army is gaining ground every day.
1	True	true	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	6	punct	_	_
3	we	we	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=1|PronType=Prs	6	nsubj	_	_
4	have	have	AUX	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=1|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	6	aux	_	_
5	been	be	AUX	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part	6	aux:pass	_	_
6	beaten	beat	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	1	parataxis	_	_
7	in	in	ADP	IN	_	10	case	_	_
8	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	10	det	_	_
9	few	few	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	10	amod	_	_
10	battles	battle	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	6	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	16	punct	_	_
12	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	16	cc	_	_
13	our	our	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Plur|Person=1|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	14	nmod:poss	_	_
14	army	army	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	16	nsubj	_	_
15	is	be	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	16	aux	_	_
16	gaining	gain	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	1	advcl	_	_
17	ground	ground	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	16	obj	_	_
18	every	every	DET	DT	PronType=Tot	19	det	_	_
19	day	day	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	16	obl:unmarked	_	SpaceAfter=No
20	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	1	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **beat** | present · perfect · passive |  | we |  |  |  | in a few battles | vn crane-40.3.2 «NP V NP PP.recipient PP.theme»: subject=Patient in battle=Topic |
| 2 | **gain** | present · progressive | our army | ground |  |  | day |  | vn get-13.5.1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent ground=Theme |

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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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