---
title: The Smith looked long ere he could see what was forming. — The Sampo: A Wonder Tale of the Old North · tree and pragmatics
description: The Smith looked long ere he could see what was forming. Who acts: Smith. A sentence of «The Sampo: A Wonder Tale of the Old North» by James Baldwin, The Caldron, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Sampo: A Wonder Tale of the Old North, The Caldron, sentence 110

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The Smith looked long ere he could see what was forming.

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**Who acts:** Smith · **What happens:** look, see, form · **To what, where:** long ere · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «The Sampo: A Wonder Tale of the Old North» by James Baldwin, The Caldron. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Smith), 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:pg66819:10:110
# text = The Smith looked long ere he could see what was forming.
1	The	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	2	det	_	_
2	Smith	Smith	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	3	nsubj	_	_
3	looked	look	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
4	long	long	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	5	amod	_	_
5	ere	ere	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	obj	_	_
6	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	8	nsubj	_	_
7	could	could	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	8	aux	_	_
8	see	see	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	5	acl:relcl	_	_
9	what	what	PRON	WP	PronType=Int	11	nsubj	_	_
10	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	11	aux	_	_
11	forming	form	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	8	ccomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **look** | past | the Smith | long ere |  |  |  |  | vn seem-109-1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Theme ere=Attribute |
| 2 | **see** | could | Smith | long ere *not said here* |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 3 | **form** | past · progressive |  |  |  |  |  | what *nsubj* | vn appear-48.1.1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |

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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 Sampo: A Wonder Tale of the Old North» by James Baldwin, Project Gutenberg book 66819 (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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