---
title: Then the elephant moved on, and the six blind men sat by the roadsid… — Fifty Famous Stories Retold · tree and pragmatics
description: Then the elephant moved on, and the six blind men sat by the roadside all day, and quar-reled about him. Who acts: elephant, six blind 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 29

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Then the elephant moved on, and the six blind men sat by the roadside all day, and quar-reled about him.

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**Who acts:** elephant, six blind men · **What happens:** move on, sit

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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 (elephant, six blind 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:pg18442:46:29
# text = Then the elephant moved on, and the six blind men sat by the roadside all day, and quar-reled about him.
1	Then	then	ADV	RB	PronType=Dem	4	advmod	_	_
2	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	3	det	_	_
3	elephant	elephant	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	nsubj	_	_
4	moved	move	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
5	on	on	ADV	RB	_	4	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	12	punct	_	_
7	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	12	cc	_	_
8	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	11	det	_	_
9	six	six	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	11	nummod	_	_
10	blind	blind	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	11	amod	_	_
11	men	man	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	12	nsubj	_	_
12	sat	sit	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	4	parataxis	_	_
13	by	by	ADP	IN	_	15	case	_	_
14	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	15	det	_	_
15	roadside	roadside	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	12	obl	_	_
16	all	all	DET	DT	PronType=Tot	17	det	_	_
17	day	day	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	12	obl:unmarked	_	SpaceAfter=No
18	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	22	punct	_	_
19	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	22	cc	_	_
20	quar	quar	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	22	amod	_	SpaceAfter=No
21	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	20	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
22	reled	reled	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	12	conj	_	_
23	about	about	ADP	IN	_	24	case	_	_
24	him	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	22	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
25	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **move on** | past | the elephant |  |  |  | then |  | vn roll-51.3.1 «NP.theme V»: agent=Theme |
| 2 | **sit** | past | the six blind men |  |  |  | day | by the roadside | vn assuming\_position-50 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Agent by roadside=Location |

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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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