---
title: They came slowly and mournfully, and much decreased in number. — Legends of the conquest of Spain · tree and pragmatics
description: They came slowly and mournfully, and much decreased in number. Who acts: troops. A sentence of «Legends of the conquest of Spain» by Washington Irving, Skirmishing of the Armies.—pelistes and His Son.—pelistes and the Bishop., with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Legends of the conquest of Spain, Skirmishing of the Armies.—pelistes and His Son.—pelistes and the Bishop., sentence 21

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They came slowly and mournfully, and much decreased in number.

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**Who acts:** troops · **What happens:** come, decrease · **To what, where:** number

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This is a sentence of «Legends of the conquest of Spain» by Washington Irving, Skirmishing of the Armies.—pelistes and His Son.—pelistes and the Bishop.. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (troops), 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:pg77685:16:21
# text = They came slowly and mournfully, and much decreased in number.
1	They	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	2	nsubj	_	_
2	came	come	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	slowly	slowly	ADV	RB	_	2	advmod	_	_
4	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	5	cc	_	_
5	mournfully	mournfully	ADV	RB	_	3	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	9	punct	_	_
7	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	9	cc	_	_
8	much	much	ADV	RB	_	9	advmod	_	_
9	decreased	decrease	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	2	conj	_	_
10	in	in	ADP	IN	_	11	case	_	_
11	number	number	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	9	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **come** | past | troops |  |  |  |  | slowly *property* | vn escape-51.1-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 2 | **decrease** | participle | troops *not said here* |  |  | number |  |  | vn caused\_calibratable\_cos-45.6.2-1 «NP V ADV-Middle»: agent=Patient |

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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:** «Legends of the conquest of Spain» by Washington Irving, Project Gutenberg book 77685 (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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