---
title: He was half-way across the river, and safe from the spears and darts… — Fifty Famous Stories Retold · tree and pragmatics
description: He was half-way across the river, and safe from the spears and darts which Porsena's soldiers hurled after him. Who acts: spake, soldiers. A sentence of «Fifty Famous Stories Retold» by James Baldwin, Horatius At the Bridge., with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

<!-- md -->
[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg18442/31/35/)

<!-- crumbs -->
[home](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) / [corpora](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/) / [tales](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/) / [Fifty Famous Stories Retold](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg18442/) / [Horatius At the Bridge.](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg18442/31/) / 35

# Fifty Famous Stories Retold, Horatius At the Bridge., sentence 35

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
He was half-way across the river, and safe from the spears and darts which Porsena's soldiers hurled after him.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** spake, soldiers · **What happens:** be, hurl · **To what, where:** half way, river, spears

<!-- .vabout -->
This is a sentence of «Fifty Famous Stories Retold» by James Baldwin, Horatius At the Bridge.. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (spake, soldiers), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

<!-- .note-en -->
**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:pg18442:31:35
# text = He was half-way across the river, and safe from the spears and darts which Porsena's soldiers hurled after him.
1	He	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	5	nsubj	_	_
2	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	5	cop	_	_
3	half	half	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos|NumForm=Word|NumType=Frac	5	amod	_	SpaceAfter=No
4	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	3	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
5	way	way	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	0	root	_	_
6	across	across	ADP	IN	_	8	case	_	_
7	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	8	det	_	_
8	river	river	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	11	punct	_	_
10	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	11	cc	_	_
11	safe	safe	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	5	parataxis	_	_
12	from	from	ADP	IN	_	14	case	_	_
13	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	14	det	_	_
14	spears	spear	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	11	obl	_	_
15	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	16	cc	_	_
16	darts	dart	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	14	conj	_	_
17	which	which	PRON	WDT	PronType=Rel	21	obj	_	_
18	Porsena	Porsena	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	20	nmod:poss	_	SpaceAfter=No
19	's	's	PART	POS	_	18	case	_	_
20	soldiers	soldier	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	21	nsubj	_	_
21	hurled	hurl	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	14	acl:relcl	_	_
22	after	after	ADP	IN	_	23	case	_	_
23	him	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	21	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
24	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	5	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is a** | past | spake *= speak* | half way |  | the river |  |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **hurl** | past | Porsena's soldiers | the spears and darts |  |  | after spake *= speak* |  | vn throw-17.1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent which=Theme |

<!-- .note -->
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.

<!-- div src -->

**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.

<!-- /div -->

<!-- pn -->
- ← previous: [sentence 34](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg18442/31/34/)
- next →: [sentence 36](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg18442/31/36/)
- ↑ back to [Horatius At the Bridge.](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg18442/31/)