---
title: The first one happened to put his hand on the elephant's side. " — Fifty Famous Stories Retold · tree and pragmatics
description: The first one happened to put his hand on the elephant's side. " Who acts: first one. 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 6

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The first one happened to put his hand on the elephant's side. "

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**Who acts:** first one · **What happens:** happen, put · **To what, where:** hand, side

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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 (first one), 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:pg18442:46:6
# text = The first one happened to put his hand on the elephant's side. "
1	The	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	3	det	_	_
2	first	first	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos|NumForm=Word|NumType=Ord	3	amod	_	_
3	one	one	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	nsubj	_	_
4	happened	happen	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
5	to	to	PART	TO	_	6	mark	_	_
6	put	put	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	4	xcomp	_	_
7	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	8	nmod:poss	_	_
8	hand	hand	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	obj	_	_
9	on	on	ADP	IN	_	13	case	_	_
10	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	11	det	_	_
11	elephant	elephant	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	13	nmod:poss	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	's	's	PART	POS	_	11	case	_	_
13	side	side	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	6	punct	_	_
15	"	"	PUNCT	''	_	6	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **happen** | past | the first one |  |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **put** | to-infinitive | the first one *not said here* | driver's hand |  | the elephant's side |  |  | vn put-9.1-2 «NP V PP.destination NP»: agent=Agent hand=Theme on side=Destination |

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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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