---
title: “I can turn things over, tear things up,” answered the plough. — The Sampo: A Wonder Tale of the Old North · tree and pragmatics
description: “I can turn things over, tear things up,” answered the plough. Who acts: plough. 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 131

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“I can turn things over, tear things up,” answered the plough.

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**Who acts:** plough · **What happens:** turn over, tear up, answer · **To what, where:** things · **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 (plough), 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:pg66819:10:131
# text = “I can turn things over, tear things up,” answered the plough.
1	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	4	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	4	nsubj	_	_
3	can	can	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	4	aux	_	_
4	turn	turn	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	13	ccomp	_	_
5	things	thing	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	4	obj	_	_
6	over	over	ADV	RB	_	4	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	8	punct	_	_
8	tear	tear	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	4	conj	_	_
9	things	thing	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	8	obj	_	_
10	up	up	ADP	RP	_	8	compound:prt	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	4	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	4	punct	_	_
13	answered	answer	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
14	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	15	det	_	_
15	plough	plough	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	13	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	13	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **turn over** *in a quote* | can | the plough *= plough* | things |  |  |  | over *property* | vn contribute-13.2 «NP V NP.theme (PP)»: agent=Agent thing=Theme |
| 2 | **tear up** *in a quote* | infinitive | the plough *= plough* *not said here* | things |  |  |  |  | vn run-51.3.2 «PP.location V NP»: agent=Initial\_Location thing=Theme |
| 3 | **answer** *speech: assert* | past | the plough |  |  |  |  |  | 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:** «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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