---
title: It so happened one morning that an el-e-phant was driven down the ro… — Fifty Famous Stories Retold · tree and pragmatics
description: It so happened one morning that an el-e-phant was driven down the road where they stood. Who acts: It, phants. 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 3

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It so happened one morning that an el-e-phant was driven down the road where they stood.

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**Who acts:** It, phants · **What happens:** happen, drive down, stand · **To what, where:** e phant

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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 (It, phants), 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:pg18442:46:3
# text = It so happened one morning that an el-e-phant was driven down the road where they stood.
1	It	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	3	nsubj	_	_
2	so	so	ADV	RB	_	3	advmod	_	_
3	happened	happen	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
4	one	one	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	5	nummod	_	_
5	morning	morning	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	obl:unmarked	_	_
6	that	that	SCONJ	IN	_	14	mark	_	_
7	an	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	12	det	_	_
8	el	el	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	10	compound	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	8	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	e	e	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	12	compound	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	10	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	phant	phant	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	14	nsubj:pass	_	_
13	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	14	aux:pass	_	_
14	driven	drive	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	3	advcl	_	_
15	down	down	ADP	IN	_	17	case	_	_
16	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	17	det	_	_
17	road	road	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	14	obl	_	_
18	where	where	ADV	WRB	PronType=Rel	20	advmod	_	_
19	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	20	nsubj	_	_
20	stood	stand	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	17	acl:relcl	_	SpaceAfter=No
21	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **happen** | past | It |  |  |  | morning |  | vn occur-48.3-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 2 | **drive down** | past · passive |  | a e phant |  |  |  | down the road | vn put\_direction-9.4 «NP V NP ADVP»: subject=Theme road=Destination |
| 3 | **stand** | past | phants *= phant* |  |  |  |  |  | vn assuming\_position-50 «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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