---
title: When he opened the letter, he found only one word written there. — Fifty Famous Stories Retold · tree and pragmatics
description: When he opened the letter, he found only one word written there. Who acts: Philip. A sentence of «Fifty Famous Stories Retold» by James Baldwin, A Laconic Answer., with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Fifty Famous Stories Retold, A Laconic Answer., sentence 12

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When he opened the letter, he found only one word written there.

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**Who acts:** Philip · **What happens:** open, find, write · **To what, where:** letter, one word

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This is a sentence of «Fifty Famous Stories Retold» by James Baldwin, A Laconic Answer.. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Philip), 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:pg18442:35:12
# text = When he opened the letter, he found only one word written there.
1	When	when	ADV	WRB	PronType=Int	3	advmod	_	_
2	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	3	nsubj	_	_
3	opened	open	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	8	advcl	_	_
4	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	5	det	_	_
5	letter	letter	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	3	punct	_	_
7	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	8	nsubj	_	_
8	found	find	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
9	only	only	ADV	RB	_	10	advmod	_	_
10	one	one	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	11	nummod	_	_
11	word	word	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	8	obj	_	_
12	written	write	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	11	acl	_	_
13	there	there	ADV	RB	PronType=Dem	12	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	8	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **open** | past | Philip | the letter |  |  |  |  | vn spatial\_configuration-47.6-1 «PP.location V NP»: agent=Location letter=Theme |
| 2 | **find** | past | Philip | one word |  |  |  |  | vn discover-84 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent word=Topic |
| 3 | **write** | participle |  | one word *not said here* |  | there |  |  | vn scribble-25.2-1 «NP V»: agent=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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