---
title: When he turned to ride back, he said to his officers,-- — Fifty Famous Stories Retold · tree and pragmatics
description: When he turned to ride back, he said to his officers,-- Who acts: Diogenes. A sentence of «Fifty Famous Stories Retold» by James Baldwin, Diogenes the Wise Man., with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Fifty Famous Stories Retold, Diogenes the Wise Man., sentence 23

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When he turned to ride back, he said to his officers,--

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**Who acts:** Diogenes · **What happens:** turn, ride back, say · **To what, where:** officers · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «Fifty Famous Stories Retold» by James Baldwin, Diogenes the Wise Man.. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Diogenes), 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:pg18442:38:23
# text = When he turned to ride back, he said to his officers,--
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	turned	turn	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	9	advcl	_	_
4	to	to	PART	TO	_	5	mark	_	_
5	ride	ride	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	3	xcomp	_	_
6	back	back	ADV	RB	_	5	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	3	punct	_	_
8	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	9	nsubj	_	_
9	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
10	to	to	ADP	IN	_	12	case	_	_
11	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	12	nmod:poss	_	_
12	officers	officer	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	9	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	9	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	--	--	PUNCT	,	_	9	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **turn** | past | Diogenes |  |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **ride back** | to-infinitive | Diogenes *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn nonvehicle-51.4.2 «NP.agent V»: agent=Agent |
| 3 | **say** *speech: assert* | past | Diogenes |  | Diogenes's officers |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V PP.recipient S-Quote»: agent=Agent to officer=Recipient |

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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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