---
title: His officers stood about him, alarmed, and won-der-ing whether he wa… — Fifty Famous Stories Retold · tree and pragmatics
description: His officers stood about him, alarmed, and won-der-ing whether he was not mad. Who acts: officers, king. A sentence of «Fifty Famous Stories Retold» by James Baldwin, King Canute on the Seashore., 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/pg18442/5/24/)

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# Fifty Famous Stories Retold, King Canute on the Seashore., sentence 24

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His officers stood about him, alarmed, and won-der-ing whether he was not mad.

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**Who acts:** officers, king · **What happens:** stand, alarm, win, not be · **To what, where:** der ing

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This is a sentence of «Fifty Famous Stories Retold» by James Baldwin, King Canute on the Seashore.. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (officers, king), 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:pg18442:5:24
# text = His officers stood about him, alarmed, and won-der-ing whether he was not mad.
1	His	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	2	nmod:poss	_	_
2	officers	officer	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	3	nsubj	_	_
3	stood	stand	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
4	about	about	ADP	IN	_	5	case	_	_
5	him	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	3	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	7	punct	_	_
7	alarmed	alarm	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	3	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	10	punct	_	_
9	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	10	cc	_	_
10	won	win	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	3	parataxis	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	10	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	der	der	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	14	compound	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	12	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	ing	ing	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	10	obj	_	_
15	whether	whether	SCONJ	IN	_	19	mark	_	_
16	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	19	nsubj	_	_
17	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	19	cop	_	_
18	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	19	advmod	_	_
19	mad	mad	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	10	advcl	_	SpaceAfter=No
20	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **stand** | past | king's officers |  |  |  |  | about king | vn assuming\_position-50 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Agent about he=Location |
| 2 | **alarm** | participle | king's officers *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn amuse-31.1 «NP V ADV-Middle»: agent=Experiencer |
| 3 | **win** | past |  | der ing |  |  |  |  | vn succeed-74-2 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent ing=Eventuality |
| 4 | **not** **is** | past | king |  |  |  |  | mad *property* | tree rules |

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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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