---
title: There were once six blind men who stood by the road-side every day,… — Fifty Famous Stories Retold · tree and pragmatics
description: There were once six blind men who stood by the road-side every day, and begged from the people who passed. Who acts: six blind men, people. A sentence of «Fifty Famous Stories Retold» by James Baldwin, The Blind Men and the Elephant., with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Fifty Famous Stories Retold, The Blind Men and the Elephant., sentence 1

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There were once six blind men who stood by the road-side every day, and begged from the people who passed.

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**Who acts:** six blind men, people · **What happens:** be, stand, beg, pass

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This is a sentence of «Fifty Famous Stories Retold» by James Baldwin, The Blind Men and the Elephant.. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (six blind men, people), 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:pg18442:46:1
# text = There were once six blind men who stood by the road-side every day, and begged from the people who passed.
1	There	there	PRON	EX	PronType=Dem	2	expl	_	_
2	were	be	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	once	once	ADV	RB	NumForm=Word|NumType=Mult	2	advmod	_	_
4	six	six	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	6	nummod	_	_
5	blind	blind	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	6	amod	_	_
6	men	man	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	2	nsubj	_	_
7	who	who	PRON	WP	PronType=Rel	8	nsubj	_	_
8	stood	stand	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	6	acl:relcl	_	_
9	by	by	ADP	IN	_	13	case	_	_
10	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	13	det	_	_
11	road	road	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	13	compound	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	11	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	side	side	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	8	obl	_	_
14	every	every	DET	DT	PronType=Tot	15	det	_	_
15	day	day	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	8	obl:unmarked	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	18	punct	_	_
17	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	18	cc	_	_
18	begged	beg	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	8	conj	_	_
19	from	from	ADP	IN	_	21	case	_	_
20	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	21	det	_	_
21	people	people	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	18	obl	_	_
22	who	who	PRON	WP	PronType=Rel	23	nsubj	_	_
23	passed	pass	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	21	acl:relcl	_	SpaceAfter=No
24	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **be** | past | six blind men |  |  | there |  | once *property* | vn exist-47.1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 2 | **stand** | past | six blind men |  |  |  | day | by the road side | vn assuming\_position-50 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Agent by side=Location |
| 3 | **beg** *speech: request* | participle | six blind men *not said here* |  |  |  |  | from the people | vn beg-58.2-1-1 «NP V PP.Topic»: agent=Agent |
| 4 | **pass** | past | the people |  |  |  |  |  | vn occur-48.3-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |

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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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