---
title: Then the robber, with a heavy ax, broke the chain that held the buoy. — Fifty Famous Stories Retold · tree and pragmatics
description: Then the robber, with a heavy ax, broke the chain that held the buoy. Who acts: robber, chain. 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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# Fifty Famous Stories Retold, The Inchcape Rock., sentence 27

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Then the robber, with a heavy ax, broke the chain that held the buoy.

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**Who acts:** robber, chain · **What happens:** break, hold · **To what, where:** chain, buoy

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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 (robber, chain), 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:pg18442:48:27
# text = Then the robber, with a heavy ax, broke the chain that held the buoy.
1	Then	then	ADV	RB	PronType=Dem	3	advmod	_	_
2	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	3	det	_	_
3	robber	robber	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	10	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
4	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	8	punct	_	_
5	with	with	ADP	IN	_	8	case	_	_
6	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	8	det	_	_
7	heavy	heavy	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	8	amod	_	_
8	ax	ax	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	3	punct	_	_
10	broke	break	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
11	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	12	det	_	_
12	chain	chain	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	10	obj	_	_
13	that	that	PRON	WDT	PronType=Rel	14	nsubj	_	_
14	held	hold	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	12	acl:relcl	_	_
15	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	16	det	_	_
16	buoy	buoy	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	14	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	10	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **break** | past | the robber and a heavy ax | the chain |  |  |  |  | vn hurt-40.8.3-1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Experiencer chain=Patient |
| 2 | **hold** | past | the chain | the buoy |  |  |  |  | vn keep-15.2 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent buoy=Theme |

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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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