---
title: The Persians came forward, only to meet death at the points of their… — Fifty Famous Stories Retold · tree and pragmatics
description: The Persians came forward, only to meet death at the points of their spears. Who acts: Persians. A sentence of «Fifty Famous Stories Retold» by James Baldwin, The Brave Three Hundred., with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Fifty Famous Stories Retold, The Brave Three Hundred., sentence 21

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The Persians came forward, only to meet death at the points of their spears.

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**Who acts:** Persians · **What happens:** come forward, meet, point · **To what, where:** death, points, spears

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This is a sentence of «Fifty Famous Stories Retold» by James Baldwin, The Brave Three Hundred.. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Persians), 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:pg18442:39:21
# text = The Persians came forward, only to meet death at the points of their spears.
1	The	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	2	det	_	_
2	Persians	Persian	PROPN	NNPS	Number=Plur	3	nsubj	_	_
3	came	come	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
4	forward	forward	ADV	RB	_	3	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
5	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	8	punct	_	_
6	only	only	ADV	RB	_	8	advmod	_	_
7	to	to	PART	TO	_	8	mark	_	_
8	meet	meet	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	3	conj	_	_
9	death	death	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	8	obj	_	_
10	at	at	ADP	IN	_	12	case	_	_
11	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	12	det	_	_
12	points	point	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	8	obl	_	_
13	of	of	ADP	IN	_	15	case	_	_
14	their	their	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Plur|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	15	nmod:poss	_	_
15	spears	spear	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	12	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **come forward** | past | the Persians |  |  |  |  | forward *property* | vn escape-51.1-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 2 | **meet** | to-infinitive | the Persians *not said here* | death |  | the points of Persians's spears |  |  | vn meet-36.3-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent death=Co-Agent |
| 3 | **point** |  |  | Persians's spears |  |  |  |  | nom point «cognition transitive»: of=patient |

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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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