---
title: The ear-li-er hours of the night passed by; and then there was a cry… — Fifty Famous Stories Retold · tree and pragmatics
description: The ear-li-er hours of the night passed by; and then there was a cry of alarm on deck. Who acts: er hours. A sentence of «Fifty Famous Stories Retold» by James Baldwin, The White Ship., with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Fifty Famous Stories Retold, The White Ship., sentence 17

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The ear-li-er hours of the night passed by; and then there was a cry of alarm on deck.

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**Who acts:** er hours · **What happens:** pass by, be · **To what, where:** night, cry, deck

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This is a sentence of «Fifty Famous Stories Retold» by James Baldwin, The White Ship.. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (er hours), 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:pg18442:7:17
# text = The ear-li-er hours of the night passed by; and then there was a cry of alarm on deck.
1	The	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	7	det	_	_
2	ear	ear	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	compound	_	SpaceAfter=No
3	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	2	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
4	li	li	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	compound	_	SpaceAfter=No
5	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	4	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	er	er	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	compound	_	_
7	hours	hour	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	19	nsubj	_	_
8	of	of	ADP	IN	_	10	case	_	_
9	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	10	det	_	_
10	night	night	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	nmod	_	_
11	passed	pass	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	10	acl	_	_
12	by	by	ADP	IN	_	11	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	;	;	PUNCT	,	_	17	punct	_	_
14	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	17	cc	_	_
15	then	then	ADV	RB	PronType=Dem	17	advmod	_	_
16	there	there	PRON	EX	PronType=Dem	17	expl	_	_
17	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	19	cop	_	_
18	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	19	det	_	_
19	cry	cry	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	0	root	_	_
20	of	of	ADP	IN	_	21	case	_	_
21	alarm	alarm	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	19	nmod	_	_
22	on	on	ADP	IN	_	23	case	_	_
23	deck	deck	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	19	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
24	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	19	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **pass by** | participle |  | the night *not said here* |  |  |  |  | vn occur-48.3-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 2 | **is a** | past | the er hours of the night | a cry |  | deck |  | of alarm | 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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