---
title: They looked at one another, and sat very still for a little while. — Fifty Famous Stories Retold · tree and pragmatics
description: They looked at one another, and sat very still for a little while. Who acts: children. A sentence of «Fifty Famous Stories Retold» by James Baldwin, The Kingdoms., with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Fifty Famous Stories Retold, The Kingdoms., sentence 18

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They looked at one another, and sat very still for a little while.

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**Who acts:** children · **What happens:** look, sit

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This is a sentence of «Fifty Famous Stories Retold» by James Baldwin, The Kingdoms.. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (children), 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:pg18442:43:18
# text = They looked at one another, and sat very still for a little while.
1	They	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	2	nsubj	_	_
2	looked	look	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	at	at	ADP	IN	_	4	case	_	_
4	one	one	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	2	obl	_	_
5	another	another	DET	DT	PronType=Ind	4	fixed	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	8	punct	_	_
7	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	8	cc	_	_
8	sat	sit	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	2	conj	_	_
9	very	very	ADV	RB	_	10	advmod	_	_
10	still	still	ADV	RB	_	8	advmod	_	_
11	for	for	ADP	IN	_	14	case	_	_
12	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	14	det	_	_
13	little	little	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	14	amod	_	_
14	while	while	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	8	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **look** | past | children *= child* |  |  |  |  | at one | vn peer-30.3 «NP V PP.theme»: agent=Agent at one=Theme |
| 2 | **sit** | past | children *= child* *not said here* |  |  |  | still; while |  | vn assuming\_position-50 «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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