---
title: Soon they sat down to a table loaded with the very dishes of which t… — Fifty Famous Stories Retold · tree and pragmatics
description: Soon they sat down to a table loaded with the very dishes of which they had pre-tend-ed to eat. Who acts: hands. 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/pg18442/44/56/)

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# Fifty Famous Stories Retold, The Barmecide Feast., sentence 56

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Soon they sat down to a table loaded with the very dishes of which they had pre-tend-ed to eat.

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**Who acts:** hands · **What happens:** sit down, load, pre-tend-, eat · **To what, where:** table

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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 (hands), 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:pg18442:44:56
# text = Soon they sat down to a table loaded with the very dishes of which they had pre-tend-ed to eat.
1	Soon	soon	ADV	RB	Degree=Pos	3	advmod	_	_
2	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	3	nsubj	_	_
3	sat	sit	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
4	down	down	ADP	RP	_	3	compound:prt	_	_
5	to	to	ADP	IN	_	7	case	_	_
6	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	7	det	_	_
7	table	table	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	obl	_	_
8	loaded	load	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	7	acl	_	_
9	with	with	ADP	IN	_	12	case	_	_
10	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	12	det	_	_
11	very	very	ADV	RB	_	12	advmod	_	_
12	dishes	dish	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	8	obl	_	_
13	of	of	ADP	IN	_	14	case	_	_
14	which	which	PRON	WDT	PronType=Rel	17	obl	_	_
15	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	17	nsubj	_	_
16	had	have	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	17	aux	_	_
17	pre-tend-ed	pre-tend-	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part	12	acl:relcl	_	_
18	to	to	PART	TO	_	19	mark	_	_
19	eat	eat	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	17	xcomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
20	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **sit down** | past | hands *= hand* |  |  |  |  | to a table; soon *property* | vn assuming\_position-50 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 2 | **load** | participle |  | a table *not said here* |  |  |  | with the dishes | vn spray-9.7-2 «NP V NP.destination PP.theme»: agent=Agent with dish=Theme |
| 3 | **pre-tend-** | past · perfect | hands *= hand* |  |  |  |  | of the dishes | tree rules |
| 4 | **eat** | to-infinitive | hands *= hand* *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn eat-39.1-1 «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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