---
title: While the old man was busy, cutting and trimming the great blocks of… — Fifty Famous Stories Retold · tree and pragmatics
description: While the old man was busy, cutting and trimming the great blocks of stone, the lad would play among the chips. Who acts: old man, lad. 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 7

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While the old man was busy, cutting and trimming the great blocks of stone, the lad would play among the chips.

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**Who acts:** old man, lad · **What happens:** be, cut, trim, play · **To what, where:** great blocks

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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 (old man, lad), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

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**Checked tree.** This sentence is in the tales treebank of Mova corpus 0.3 (`gutenberg:pg18442:1698`): parsed by Mova, then checked and patched by a teacher model under UD validation gates — Mova annot: Rust (en) → Claude Opus (medium) patches; gates UD 2.18.

## The tree {#tree}

```conllu
# sent_id = book:pg18442:54:7
# text = While the old man was busy, cutting and trimming the great blocks of stone, the lad would play among the chips.
1	While	while	SCONJ	IN	_	6	mark	_	_
2	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	4	det	_	_
3	old	old	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	4	amod	_	_
4	man	man	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	nsubj	_	_
5	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	6	cop	_	_
6	busy	busy	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	20	advcl	_	_
7	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	8	punct	_	_
8	cutting	cut	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	6	advcl	_	_
9	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	10	cc	_	_
10	trimming	trim	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	8	conj	_	_
11	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	13	det	_	_
12	great	great	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	13	amod	_	_
13	blocks	block	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	10	obj	_	_
14	of	of	ADP	IN	_	15	case	_	_
15	stone	stone	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	13	nmod	_	_
16	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	6	punct	_	_
17	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	18	det	_	_
18	lad	lad	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	20	nsubj	_	_
19	would	would	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	20	aux	_	_
20	play	play	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	0	root	_	_
21	among	among	ADP	IN	_	23	case	_	_
22	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	23	det	_	_
23	chips	chip	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	20	obl	_	_
24	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	20	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is** | past | the old man |  |  |  |  | busy *property* | tree rules |
| 2 | **cut** | gerund | the old man *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn amuse-31.1 «NP V ADV-Middle»: agent=Experiencer |
| 3 | **trim** | gerund | the old man *not said here* | the great blocks of stone |  |  |  |  | vn braid-41.2.2 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent block=Patient |
| 4 | **play** | would | the lad |  |  |  |  | among the chips | vn performance-26.7-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent |

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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:** the tales treebank of Mova corpus 0.3, Apache-2.0 OR MIT. **Frames:** Mova's frames reader (`prag`), the chapter read in order.

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