---
title: Of course they could not see him with their eyes; but they thought t… — Fifty Famous Stories Retold · tree and pragmatics
description: Of course they could not see him with their eyes; but they thought that by touching him they could learn just what kind of animal he was. Who acts: 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 ev
---

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# Fifty Famous Stories Retold, The Blind Men and the Elephant., sentence 5

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Of course they could not see him with their eyes; but they thought that by touching him they could learn just what kind of animal he was.

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**Who acts:** phants · **What happens:** not see, think, touch, learn · **To what, where:** driver, kind

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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 (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:pg18442:46:5
# text = Of course they could not see him with their eyes; but they thought that by touching him they could learn just what kind of animal he was.
1	Of	of	ADP	IN	ExtPos=ADV	6	advmod	_	_
2	course	course	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	1	fixed	_	_
3	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	6	nsubj	_	_
4	could	could	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	6	aux	_	_
5	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	6	advmod	_	_
6	see	see	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	0	root	_	_
7	him	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	6	obj	_	_
8	with	with	ADP	IN	_	10	case	_	_
9	their	their	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Plur|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	10	nmod:poss	_	_
10	eyes	eye	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	6	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	;	;	PUNCT	:	_	14	punct	_	_
12	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	14	cc	_	_
13	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	14	nsubj	_	_
14	thought	think	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	6	advcl	_	_
15	that	that	SCONJ	IN	_	17	mark	_	_
16	by	by	SCONJ	IN	_	17	mark	_	_
17	touching	touch	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	14	advcl	_	_
18	him	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	17	obj	_	_
19	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	21	nsubj	_	_
20	could	could	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	21	aux	_	_
21	learn	learn	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	17	parataxis	_	_
22	just	just	ADV	RB	_	24	advmod	_	_
23	what	what	DET	WDT	PronType=Int	24	det	_	_
24	kind	kind	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	21	obj	_	_
25	of	of	ADP	IN	_	26	case	_	_
26	animal	animal	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	24	nmod	_	_
27	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	28	nsubj	_	_
28	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	24	acl:relcl	_	SpaceAfter=No
29	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	6	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **not** **see** | could | phants *= phant* | driver |  |  |  | with phants's eyes | vn comprehend-87.2-1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Experiencer he=Stimulus |
| 2 | **think** *speech: other* | past | phants *= phant* |  |  |  |  |  | vn focus-87.1-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 3 | **touch** | gerund | phants *= phant* *not said here* | driver |  |  |  |  | vn contiguous\_location-47.8-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Theme he=Co-Theme |
| 4 | **learn** | could | phants *= phant* | what kind of animal |  |  |  |  | vn learn-14-2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent kind=Topic |

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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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