---
title: They had often heard of el-e-phants, but they had never seen one; fo… — Fifty Famous Stories Retold · tree and pragmatics
description: They had often heard of el-e-phants, but they had never seen one; for, being blind, how could they? Who acts: men. 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 2

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They had often heard of el-e-phants, but they had never seen one; for, being blind, how could they?

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**Who acts:** men · **What happens:** hear, not see, be · **To what, where:** men, one

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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 (men), 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:pg18442:46:2
# text = They had often heard of el-e-phants, but they had never seen one; for, being blind, how could they?
1	They	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	4	nsubj:pass	_	_
2	had	have	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	4	aux	_	_
3	often	often	ADV	RB	_	4	advmod	_	_
4	heard	hear	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	0	root	_	_
5	of	of	ADP	IN	_	10	case	_	_
6	el	el	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	10	compound	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	6	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	e	e	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	10	compound	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	10	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	phants	phant	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	4	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	16	punct	_	_
12	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	16	cc	_	_
13	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	16	nsubj	_	_
14	had	have	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	16	aux	_	_
15	never	never	ADV	RB	PronType=Neg	16	advmod	_	_
16	seen	see	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part	4	conj	_	_
17	one	one	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	16	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
18	;	;	PUNCT	,	_	22	punct	_	_
19	for	for	ADP	IN	_	22	case	_	SpaceAfter=No
20	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	22	punct	_	_
21	being	be	AUX	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	22	cop	_	_
22	blind	blind	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	4	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
23	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	25	punct	_	_
24	how	how	ADV	WRB	PronType=Int	25	advmod	_	_
25	could	could	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	22	aux	_	_
26	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	25	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
27	?	?	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **hear** | past · perfect · passive |  | men *= man* |  |  |  | of el e phants; often *property* | vn see-30.1-1-1 «NP V S»: subject=Stimulus |
| 2 | **not** **see** | past · perfect | men *= man* | one |  |  |  |  | vn comprehend-87.2-1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Experiencer one=Stimulus |
| 3 | **is** | could · gerund |  |  |  |  |  | blind *property* | 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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