---
title: Were I not here to paint the rainbow, the storm clouds would never v… — The Sampo: A Wonder Tale of the Old North · tree and pragmatics
description: Were I not here to paint the rainbow, the storm clouds would never vanish. Who acts: I, storm clouds. A sentence of «The Sampo: A Wonder Tale of the Old North» by James Baldwin, The Homesick Hero, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Sampo: A Wonder Tale of the Old North, The Homesick Hero, sentence 40

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Were I not here to paint the rainbow, the storm clouds would never vanish.

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**Who acts:** I, storm clouds · **What happens:** not be, paint, not vanish · **To what, where:** rainbow

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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 (I, storm clouds), 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:pg66819:12:40
# text = Were I not here to paint the rainbow, the storm clouds would never vanish.
1	Were	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	4	cop	_	_
2	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	4	nsubj	_	_
3	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	4	advmod	_	_
4	here	here	ADV	RB	PronType=Dem	0	root	_	_
5	to	to	PART	TO	_	6	mark	_	_
6	paint	paint	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	4	advcl	_	_
7	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	8	det	_	_
8	rainbow	rainbow	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	15	punct	_	_
10	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	12	det	_	_
11	storm	storm	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	12	compound	_	_
12	clouds	cloud	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	15	nsubj	_	_
13	would	would	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	15	aux	_	_
14	never	never	ADV	RB	PronType=Neg	15	advmod	_	_
15	vanish	vanish	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	8	acl:relcl	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **not** **is** | past | I |  |  |  |  | here *property* | tree rules |
| 2 | **paint** | to-infinitive | I *not said here* | the rainbow |  |  |  |  | vn image\_impression-25.1 «NP V NP.destination»: agent=Agent rainbow=Destination |
| 3 | **not** **vanish** | would | the storm clouds | the rainbow *not said here* |  |  |  |  | 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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