---
title: They knew who he was, and so took him back to Rome. — Fifty Famous Stories Retold · tree and pragmatics
description: They knew who he was, and so took him back to Rome. Who acts: soldiers. A sentence of «Fifty Famous Stories Retold» by James Baldwin, Androclus and the Lion., with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Fifty Famous Stories Retold, Androclus and the Lion., sentence 20

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They knew who he was, and so took him back to Rome.

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**Who acts:** soldiers · **What happens:** know, take back · **To what, where:** Androclus, Rome

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This is a sentence of «Fifty Famous Stories Retold» by James Baldwin, Androclus and the Lion.. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (soldiers), 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:pg18442:30:20
# text = They knew who he was, and so took him back to Rome.
1	They	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	2	nsubj	_	_
2	knew	know	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	who	who	PRON	WP	PronType=Rel	2	obj	_	_
4	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	5	nsubj	_	_
5	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	3	acl:relcl	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	9	punct	_	_
7	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	9	cc	_	_
8	so	so	ADV	RB	_	9	advmod	_	_
9	took	take	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	2	conj	_	_
10	him	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	9	obj	_	_
11	back	back	ADV	RB	_	9	advmod	_	_
12	to	to	ADP	IN	_	13	case	_	_
13	Rome	Rome	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	9	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **know** | past | soldiers *= soldier* |  |  |  |  |  | vn comprehend-87.2-1-1-1 «NP V NP PP.attribute»: agent=Experiencer who=Stimulus |
| 2 | **take back** | past | soldiers *= soldier* *not said here* | Androclus | Rome |  |  |  | vn bring-11.3 «NP V NP PP.destination»: agent=Agent he=Theme to rome=Destination |

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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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