---
title: Who, at winter’s beginning, would tell the songbirds to fly southwar… — The Sampo: A Wonder Tale of the Old North · tree and pragmatics
description: Who, at winter’s beginning, would tell the songbirds to fly southward, and who would cheer the wild geese on their way to summer lands?” Who acts: songbirds, winter. A sentence of «The Sampo: A Wonder Tale of the Old North» by James Baldwin, The Homesick Hero, with its dependency tree and the pragma
---

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# The Sampo: A Wonder Tale of the Old North, The Homesick Hero, sentence 32

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Who, at winter’s beginning, would tell the songbirds to fly southward, and who would cheer the wild geese on their way to summer lands?”

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** songbirds, winter · **What happens:** tell, fly, cheer, begin · **To what, where:** songbirds, wild geese, way · **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 Homesick Hero. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (songbirds, winter), 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:pg66819:12:32
# text = Who, at winter’s beginning, would tell the songbirds to fly southward, and who would cheer the wild geese on their way to summer lands?”
1	Who	who	PRON	WP	PronType=Rel	9	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	6	punct	_	_
3	at	at	ADP	IN	_	6	case	_	_
4	winter	winter	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	nmod:poss	_	SpaceAfter=No
5	’s	's	PART	POS	_	4	case	_	_
6	beginning	beginning	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	1	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	1	punct	_	_
8	would	would	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	9	aux	_	_
9	tell	tell	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	0	root	_	_
10	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	11	det	_	_
11	songbirds	songbird	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	9	obj	_	_
12	to	to	PART	TO	_	13	mark	_	_
13	fly	fly	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	9	xcomp	_	_
14	southward	southward	ADV	RB	_	13	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	19	punct	_	_
16	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	19	cc	_	_
17	who	who	PRON	WP	PronType=Rel	19	nsubj	_	_
18	would	would	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	19	aux	_	_
19	cheer	cheer	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	9	conj	_	_
20	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	22	det	_	_
21	wild	wild	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	22	amod	_	_
22	geese	goose	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	19	obj	_	_
23	on	on	ADP	IN	_	25	case	_	_
24	their	their	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Plur|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	25	nmod:poss	_	_
25	way	way	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	22	nmod	_	_
26	to	to	PART	TO	_	28	mark	_	_
27	summer	summer	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	28	compound	_	_
28	lands	land	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	19	advcl	_	SpaceAfter=No
29	?	?	PUNCT	.	_	9	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
30	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	9	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **tell** *speech: assert* | would |  | the songbirds |  |  |  | Who at winter's beginning *nsubj* | vn transfer\_mesg-37.1.1-1-1 «NP V NP S\_INF»: agent=Agent songbird=Recipient clause=Topic |
| 2 | **fly** *not said to happen* | to-infinitive | the songbirds *not said here* |  |  |  |  | southward *property* | vn spatial\_configuration-47.6-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 3 | **cheer** | would |  | the wild geese |  | geese's way |  | who *nsubj*; summer lands *advcl* | vn amuse-31.1 «NP V NP»: agent=Stimulus goose=Experiencer |
| 4 | **begin** |  | winter |  |  |  |  |  | nom beginning «event transitive»: poss=agent |

<!-- .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:** «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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