---
title: Was it the abbot's bell, ringing for him far down at the bottom of t… — Fifty Famous Stories Retold · tree and pragmatics
description: Was it the abbot's bell, ringing for him far down at the bottom of the sea? Who acts: wretch, bell. A sentence of «Fifty Famous Stories Retold» by James Baldwin, The Inchcape Rock., with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

<!-- md -->
[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg18442/48/52/)

<!-- crumbs -->
[home](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) / [corpora](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/) / [tales](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/) / [Fifty Famous Stories Retold](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg18442/) / [The Inchcape Rock.](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg18442/48/) / 52

# Fifty Famous Stories Retold, The Inchcape Rock., sentence 52

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
Was it the abbot's bell, ringing for him far down at the bottom of the sea?

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** wretch, bell · **What happens:** be, ring · **To what, where:** bell, bottom

<!-- .vabout -->
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 (wretch, bell), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

<!-- .note-en -->
**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:pg18442:48:52
# text = Was it the abbot's bell, ringing for him far down at the bottom of the sea?
1	Was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	6	cop	_	_
2	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	6	nsubj	_	_
3	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	4	det	_	_
4	abbot	abbot	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	nmod:poss	_	SpaceAfter=No
5	's	's	PART	POS	_	4	case	_	_
6	bell	bell	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	6	punct	_	_
8	ringing	ring	VERB	VBG	VerbForm=Ger	6	acl	_	_
9	for	for	ADP	IN	_	10	case	_	_
10	him	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	8	obl	_	_
11	far	far	ADV	RB	Degree=Pos	12	advmod	_	_
12	down	down	ADV	RB	_	8	advmod	_	_
13	at	at	ADP	IN	_	15	case	_	_
14	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	15	det	_	_
15	bottom	bottom	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	8	obl	_	_
16	of	of	ADP	IN	_	18	case	_	_
17	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	18	det	_	_
18	sea	sea	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	15	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
19	?	?	PUNCT	.	_	6	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is a** | past | wretch | the abbot's bell |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **ring** | gerund | the abbot's bell *not said here* |  |  | the bottom of the sea |  | for Abbot; down *property* | vn sound\_emission-43.2 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Theme at bottom=Location |

<!-- .note -->
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.

<!-- div src -->

**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.

<!-- /div -->

<!-- pn -->
- ← previous: [sentence 51](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg18442/48/51/)
- next →: [I. the City., 1](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg18442/49/1/)
- ↑ back to [The Inchcape Rock.](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg18442/48/)