---
title: He spent his days sitting in the sun, and saying wise things to thos… — Fifty Famous Stories Retold · tree and pragmatics
description: He spent his days sitting in the sun, and saying wise things to those who were around him. Who acts: man. 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 6

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He spent his days sitting in the sun, and saying wise things to those who were around him.

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**Who acts:** man · **What happens:** spend, sit, say, be · **To what, where:** sun, wise things, those · **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 (man), 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:pg18442:38:6
# text = He spent his days sitting in the sun, and saying wise things to those who were around him.
1	He	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	2	nsubj	_	_
2	spent	spend	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	4	nmod:poss	_	_
4	days	day	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	2	obj	_	_
5	sitting	sit	VERB	VBG	VerbForm=Ger	2	advcl	_	_
6	in	in	ADP	IN	_	8	case	_	_
7	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	8	det	_	_
8	sun	sun	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	11	punct	_	_
10	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	11	cc	_	_
11	saying	say	VERB	VBG	VerbForm=Ger	5	conj	_	_
12	wise	wise	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	13	amod	_	_
13	things	thing	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	11	obj	_	_
14	to	to	ADP	IN	_	15	case	_	_
15	those	that	PRON	DT	Number=Plur|PronType=Dem	11	obl	_	_
16	who	who	PRON	WP	PronType=Rel	19	nsubj	_	_
17	were	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	19	cop	_	_
18	around	around	ADP	IN	_	19	case	_	_
19	him	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	15	acl:relcl	_	SpaceAfter=No
20	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **spend** | past | man |  |  |  | day |  | vn consume-66-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent |
| 2 | **sit** | gerund | man *not said here* |  |  | the sun |  |  | vn assuming\_position-50 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Agent in sun=Location |
| 3 | **say** *speech: assert* | gerund | man *not said here* | wise things | those |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V NP PP.recipient»: agent=Agent thing=Topic to that=Recipient |
| 4 | **is** | past |  |  |  |  |  | around man | tree rules |

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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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