---
title: It was the Barmecide; and poor Schacabac bowed low before him, as wa… — Fifty Famous Stories Retold · tree and pragmatics
description: It was the Barmecide; and poor Schacabac bowed low before him, as was the custom in that country. Who acts: beard, poor Schacabac. A sentence of «Fifty Famous Stories Retold» by James Baldwin, The Barmecide Feast., with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg18442/44/13/)

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# Fifty Famous Stories Retold, The Barmecide Feast., sentence 13

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It was the Barmecide; and poor Schacabac bowed low before him, as was the custom in that country.

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**Who acts:** beard, poor Schacabac · **What happens:** be, bow · **To what, where:** Barmecide, country

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This is a sentence of «Fifty Famous Stories Retold» by James Baldwin, The Barmecide Feast.. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (beard, poor Schacabac), 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:pg18442:44:13
# text = It was the Barmecide; and poor Schacabac bowed low before him, as was the custom in that country.
1	It	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	4	nsubj	_	_
2	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	4	cop	_	_
3	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	4	det	_	_
4	Barmecide	barmecide	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
5	;	;	PUNCT	:	_	9	punct	_	_
6	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	9	cc	_	_
7	poor	poor	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	8	amod	_	_
8	Schacabac	Schacabac	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	9	nsubj	_	_
9	bowed	bow	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	4	conj	_	_
10	low	low	ADV	RB	Degree=Pos	9	advmod	_	_
11	before	before	ADP	IN	_	12	case	_	_
12	him	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	9	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	17	punct	_	_
14	as	as	ADP	IN	_	17	case	_	_
15	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	17	cop	_	_
16	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	17	det	_	_
17	custom	custom	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	9	obl	_	_
18	in	in	ADP	IN	_	20	case	_	_
19	that	that	DET	DT	Number=Sing|PronType=Dem	20	det	_	_
20	country	country	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	17	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
21	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is a** | past | beard | the Barmecide |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **bow** | past | poor Schacabac |  |  |  | before man | low *property* | vn assuming\_position-50 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Agent before he=Location |
| 3 | **is** | past |  |  |  | that country |  | as the custom | 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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