---
title: When the Count and his friends came in to dinner, the first thing th… — Fifty Famous Stories Retold · tree and pragmatics
description: When the Count and his friends came in to dinner, the first thing they saw was the yellow lion. Who acts: Count, things, first thing. A sentence of «Fifty Famous Stories Retold» by James Baldwin, Antonio Canova., with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Fifty Famous Stories Retold, Antonio Canova., sentence 51

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When the Count and his friends came in to dinner, the first thing they saw was the yellow lion.

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**Who acts:** Count, things, first thing · **What happens:** come in, see, be · **To what, where:** dinner, first thing, yellow lion

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This is a sentence of «Fifty Famous Stories Retold» by James Baldwin, Antonio Canova.. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Count, things, first thing), 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:pg18442:54:51
# text = When the Count and his friends came in to dinner, the first thing they saw was the yellow lion.
1	When	when	ADV	WRB	PronType=Int	7	advmod	_	_
2	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	3	det	_	_
3	Count	Count	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	7	nsubj	_	_
4	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	6	cc	_	_
5	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	6	nmod:poss	_	_
6	friends	friend	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	3	conj	_	_
7	came	come	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	20	advcl	_	_
8	in	in	ADV	RB	_	7	advmod	_	_
9	to	to	ADP	IN	_	10	case	_	_
10	dinner	dinner	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	7	punct	_	_
12	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	14	det	_	_
13	first	first	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos|NumForm=Word|NumType=Ord	14	amod	_	_
14	thing	thing	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	20	nsubj	_	_
15	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	16	nsubj	_	_
16	saw	see	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	14	acl:relcl	_	_
17	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	20	cop	_	_
18	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	20	det	_	_
19	yellow	yellow	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	20	amod	_	_
20	lion	lion	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
21	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	20	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **come in** | past | the Count and Count's friends |  |  | dinner |  |  | vn escape-51.1-1 «NP V PP.initial\_location»: agent=Theme to dinner=Initial\_Location |
| 2 | **see** | past | things *= thing* | the first thing *not said here* |  |  |  |  | vn comprehend-87.2-1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Experiencer thing=Stimulus |
| 3 | **is a** | past | the first thing | the yellow lion |  |  |  |  | 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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