---
title: When they heard the bell ringing, they knew just where the rock was,… — Fifty Famous Stories Retold · tree and pragmatics
description: When they heard the bell ringing, they knew just where the rock was, and they steered their vessels around it. Who acts: sailors, bell. A sentence of «Fifty Famous Stories Retold» by James Baldwin, The Inchcape Rock., with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg18442/48/11/)

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# Fifty Famous Stories Retold, The Inchcape Rock., sentence 11

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When they heard the bell ringing, they knew just where the rock was, and they steered their vessels around it.

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**Who acts:** sailors, bell · **What happens:** hear, ring, know, steer · **To what, where:** bell, vessels, rock

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This is a sentence of «Fifty Famous Stories Retold» by James Baldwin, The Inchcape Rock.. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (sailors, bell), 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:pg18442:48:11
# text = When they heard the bell ringing, they knew just where the rock was, and they steered their vessels around it.
1	When	when	ADV	WRB	PronType=Int	3	advmod	_	_
2	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	3	nsubj	_	_
3	heard	hear	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	9	advcl	_	_
4	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	5	det	_	_
5	bell	bell	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	obj	_	_
6	ringing	ring	VERB	VBG	VerbForm=Ger	5	acl	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	3	punct	_	_
8	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	9	nsubj	_	_
9	knew	know	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
10	just	just	ADV	RB	_	11	advmod	_	_
11	where	where	ADV	WRB	PronType=Rel	9	advmod	_	_
12	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	13	det	_	_
13	rock	rock	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	14	nsubj	_	_
14	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	11	advcl:relcl	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	18	punct	_	_
16	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	18	cc	_	_
17	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	18	nsubj	_	_
18	steered	steer	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	9	advcl	_	_
19	their	their	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Plur|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	20	nmod:poss	_	_
20	vessels	vessel	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	18	obj	_	_
21	around	around	ADP	IN	_	22	case	_	_
22	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	18	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
23	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	9	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **hear** | past | sailors *= sailor* | the bell |  |  |  |  | vn see-30.1-1-1 «NP V S»: agent=Experiencer bell=Stimulus |
| 2 | **ring** | gerund | the bell *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn sound\_emission-43.2 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 3 | **know** | past | sailors *= sailor* |  |  |  |  |  | vn comprehend-87.2-1-1-1 «NP V»: agent=Experiencer |
| 4 | **steer** | past | sailors *= sailor* | sailors's vessels |  | rock |  |  | vn accompany-51.7 «NP V NP PP.destination»: agent=Agent vessel=Theme around it=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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