---
title: The sea robber laughed as he looked back and saw that there was noth… — Fifty Famous Stories Retold · tree and pragmatics
description: The sea robber laughed as he looked back and saw that there was nothing to mark the place of the hidden rock. Who acts: sea robber, robber, nothing. 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/pg18442/48/33/)

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# Fifty Famous Stories Retold, The Inchcape Rock., sentence 33

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The sea robber laughed as he looked back and saw that there was nothing to mark the place of the hidden rock.

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**Who acts:** sea robber, robber, nothing · **What happens:** laugh, look back, see, be, mark · **To what, where:** place · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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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 (sea robber, robber, nothing), 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:pg18442:48:33
# text = The sea robber laughed as he looked back and saw that there was nothing to mark the place of the hidden rock.
1	The	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	3	det	_	_
2	sea	sea	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	compound	_	_
3	robber	robber	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	nsubj	_	_
4	laughed	laugh	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
5	as	as	SCONJ	IN	_	7	mark	_	_
6	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	7	nsubj	_	_
7	looked	look	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	4	ccomp	_	_
8	back	back	ADV	RB	_	7	advmod	_	_
9	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	10	cc	_	_
10	saw	see	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	7	conj	_	_
11	that	that	SCONJ	IN	_	13	mark	_	_
12	there	there	PRON	EX	PronType=Dem	13	expl	_	_
13	was	be	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	10	ccomp	_	_
14	nothing	nothing	PRON	NN	Number=Sing|PronType=Neg	13	nsubj	_	_
15	to	to	PART	TO	_	16	mark	_	_
16	mark	mark	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	14	acl	_	_
17	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	18	det	_	_
18	place	place	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	16	obj	_	_
19	of	of	ADP	IN	_	22	case	_	_
20	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	22	det	_	_
21	hidden	hidden	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	22	amod	_	_
22	rock	rock	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	18	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
23	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **laugh** | past | the sea robber |  |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **look back** | past | robber |  |  |  |  |  | vn stimulus\_subject-30.4 «NP V PP.attribute»: agent=Stimulus |
| 3 | **see** | past | robber *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn comprehend-87.2-1-1 «NP V S\_ING»: agent=Experiencer clause=Stimulus |
| 4 | **be** | past | nothing |  |  | there |  |  | vn exist-47.1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 5 | **mark** | to-infinitive | nothing *not said here* | the place of the hidden rock |  |  |  |  | vn image\_impression-25.1 «NP V NP.destination»: agent=Agent place=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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- ← previous: [sentence 32](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg18442/48/32/)
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- ↑ back to [The Inchcape Rock.](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg18442/48/)