---
title: And often the limits are almost passed, As the swift ball flies and… — Legends of the Northwest · tree and pragmatics
description: And often the limits are almost passed, As the swift ball flies and returns. Who acts: swift ball. A sentence of «Legends of the Northwest» by Hanford Lennox Gordon, The Game of Ball. [2], with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Legends of the Northwest, The Game of Ball. \[2\], sentence 14

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
And often the limits are almost passed, As the swift ball flies and returns.

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**Who acts:** swift ball · **What happens:** pass, fly, return · **To what, where:** limits

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This is a sentence of «Legends of the Northwest» by Hanford Lennox Gordon, The Game of Ball. \[2\]. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (swift ball), 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:pg8122:6:14
# text = And often the limits are almost passed, As the swift ball flies and returns.
1	And	and	CCONJ	CC	_	7	cc	_	_
2	often	often	ADV	RB	_	7	advmod	_	_
3	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	4	det	_	_
4	limits	limit	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	7	nsubj:pass	_	_
5	are	be	AUX	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	7	aux:pass	_	_
6	almost	almost	ADV	RB	_	7	advmod	_	_
7	passed	pass	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	13	punct	_	_
9	As	as	SCONJ	IN	_	13	mark	_	_
10	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	12	det	_	_
11	swift	swift	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	12	compound	_	_
12	ball	ball	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	13	nsubj	_	_
13	flies	fly	VERB	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	7	parataxis	_	_
14	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	15	cc	_	_
15	returns	return	VERB	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	13	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	7	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **pass** | present · passive |  | the limits |  |  |  | almost, often *property* | vn escape-51.1-1-3 «NP V NP»: subject=Trajectory |
| 2 | **fly** | present | the swift ball |  |  |  |  |  | vn spatial\_configuration-47.6-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 3 | **return** | present | the swift ball *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn escape-51.1-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |

<!-- .note -->
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 Northwest» by Hanford Lennox Gordon, Project Gutenberg book 8122 (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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