---
title: It was the law at that time that every slave who ran away from his m… — Fifty Famous Stories Retold · tree and pragmatics
description: It was the law at that time that every slave who ran away from his master should be made to fight a hungry lion. Who acts: slave. 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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[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg18442/30/21/)

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# Fifty Famous Stories Retold, Androclus and the Lion., sentence 21

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It was the law at that time that every slave who ran away from his master should be made to fight a hungry lion.

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**Who acts:** slave · **What happens:** be, run away, make, fight · **To what, where:** law, slave, hungry lion

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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 (slave), 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:pg18442:30:21
# text = It was the law at that time that every slave who ran away from his master should be made to fight a hungry lion.
1	It	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	4	expl	_	_
2	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	4	cop	_	_
3	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	4	det	_	_
4	law	law	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	0	root	_	_
5	at	at	ADP	IN	_	7	case	_	_
6	that	that	DET	DT	Number=Sing|PronType=Dem	7	det	_	_
7	time	time	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	nmod	_	_
8	that	that	PRON	WDT	PronType=Rel	19	obj	_	_
9	every	every	DET	DT	PronType=Tot	10	det	_	_
10	slave	slave	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	19	nsubj:pass	_	_
11	who	who	PRON	WP	PronType=Rel	12	nsubj	_	_
12	ran	run	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	10	acl:relcl	_	_
13	away	away	ADV	RB	_	12	advmod	_	_
14	from	from	ADP	IN	_	16	case	_	_
15	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	16	nmod:poss	_	_
16	master	master	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	13	obl	_	_
17	should	should	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	19	aux	_	_
18	be	be	AUX	VB	VerbForm=Inf	19	aux:pass	_	_
19	made	make	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	4	acl:relcl	_	_
20	to	to	PART	TO	_	21	mark	_	_
21	fight	fight	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	19	xcomp	_	_
22	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	24	det	_	_
23	hungry	hungry	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	24	amod	_	_
24	lion	lion	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	21	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
25	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is a** | past |  | the law |  |  | time |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **run away** | past | every slave |  |  |  |  | away *property* | vn run-51.3.2-2-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 3 | **make** | should · passive |  | every slave |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 4 | **fight** | to-infinitive | every slave *not said here* | a hungry lion |  |  |  |  | vn battle-36.4-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent lion=Co-Agent |

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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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- ← previous: [sentence 20](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg18442/30/20/)
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- ↑ back to [Androclus and the Lion.](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg18442/30/)