---
title: There were thousands of horsemen and footmen, and they were marching… — Fifty Famous Stories Retold · tree and pragmatics
description: There were thousands of horsemen and footmen, and they were marching straight toward the wooden bridge which spanned the river at Rome. Who acts: thousands, wooden bridge. A sentence of «Fifty Famous Stories Retold» by James Baldwin, Horatius At the Bridge., with its dependency tree and the pragmati
---

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# Fifty Famous Stories Retold, Horatius At the Bridge., sentence 7

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There were thousands of horsemen and footmen, and they were marching straight toward the wooden bridge which spanned the river at Rome.

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**Who acts:** thousands, wooden bridge · **What happens:** be, march, span · **To what, where:** wooden bridge, river, Rome

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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 (thousands, wooden bridge), 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:pg18442:31:7
# text = There were thousands of horsemen and footmen, and they were marching straight toward the wooden bridge which spanned the river at Rome.
1	There	there	PRON	EX	PronType=Dem	2	expl	_	_
2	were	be	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	thousands	thousand	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	2	nsubj	_	_
4	of	of	ADP	IN	_	5	case	_	_
5	horsemen	horseman	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	3	nmod	_	_
6	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	7	cc	_	_
7	footmen	footman	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	5	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	12	punct	_	_
9	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	12	cc	_	_
10	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	12	nsubj	_	_
11	were	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	12	aux	_	_
12	marching	march	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	2	advcl	_	_
13	straight	straight	ADV	RB	_	12	advmod	_	_
14	toward	toward	ADP	IN	_	17	case	_	_
15	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	17	det	_	_
16	wooden	wooden	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	17	amod	_	_
17	bridge	bridge	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	12	obl	_	_
18	which	which	PRON	WDT	PronType=Rel	19	nsubj	_	_
19	spanned	span	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	17	acl:relcl	_	_
20	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	21	det	_	_
21	river	river	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	19	obj	_	_
22	at	at	ADP	IN	_	23	case	_	_
23	Rome	Rome	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	19	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
24	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **be** | past | thousands of horsemen and footmen |  |  | there |  |  | vn exist-47.1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 2 | **march** | past · progressive | thousands *= thousand* |  |  | the wooden bridge |  | straight *property* | vn run-51.3.2-2-1 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Theme toward bridge=Trajectory |
| 3 | **span** | past | the wooden bridge | the river |  | Rome |  |  | vn contiguous\_location-47.8 «NP V NP»: agent=Theme river=Co-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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