---
title: They were burning on the bank a corpse, whose former owner had died… — The descent of the sun: A cycle of birth · tree and pragmatics
description: They were burning on the bank a corpse, whose former owner had died of plague. Who acts: yards, former owner. A sentence of «The descent of the sun: A cycle of birth» by Unknown, The Descent of the Sun., with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The descent of the sun: A cycle of birth, The Descent of the Sun., sentence 50

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They were burning on the bank a corpse, whose former owner had died of plague.

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**Who acts:** yards, former owner · **What happens:** burn, die · **To what, where:** corpse, bank

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This is a sentence of «The descent of the sun: A cycle of birth» by Unknown, The Descent of the Sun.. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (yards, former owner), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

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**Mova's own parse.** This tree may be wrong.

## The tree {#tree}

```conllu
# sent_id = book:pg68641:1:50
# text = They were burning on the bank a corpse, whose former owner had died of plague.
1	They	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	3	nsubj	_	_
2	were	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	3	aux	_	_
3	burning	burn	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	0	root	_	_
4	on	on	ADP	IN	_	6	case	_	_
5	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	6	det	_	_
6	bank	bank	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	obl	_	_
7	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	8	det	_	_
8	corpse	corpse	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	14	punct	_	_
10	whose	whose	PRON	WP$	Poss=Yes|PronType=Rel	12	nmod:poss	_	_
11	former	former	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	12	amod	_	_
12	owner	owner	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	14	nsubj	_	_
13	had	have	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	14	aux	_	_
14	died	die	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part	8	acl:relcl	_	_
15	of	of	ADP	IN	_	16	case	_	_
16	plague	plague	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	14	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **burn** | past · progressive | yards *= yard* | a corpse |  | the bank |  |  | vn light\_emission-43.1 «NP V NP.theme»: agent=Agent corpse=Theme |
| 2 | **die** | past · perfect | former owner |  |  |  |  | of plague | vn die-42.4-1 «NP V PP.cause»: agent=Patient of plague=Causer |

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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:** «The descent of the sun: A cycle of birth» by Unknown, Project Gutenberg book 68641 (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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