---
title: “Perhaps a squirrel, perhaps a summer reindeer, or perhaps a gray an… — The Sampo: A Wonder Tale of the Old North · tree and pragmatics
description: “Perhaps a squirrel, perhaps a summer reindeer, or perhaps a gray and skulking wolf is hiding the precious secrets in its throat or between its jaws. Who acts: skulking. A sentence of «The Sampo: A Wonder Tale of the Old North» by James Baldwin, The Unfinished Boat, with its dependency tree and the 
---

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[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg66819/13/137/)

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# The Sampo: A Wonder Tale of the Old North, The Unfinished Boat, sentence 137

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“Perhaps a squirrel, perhaps a summer reindeer, or perhaps a gray and skulking wolf is hiding the precious secrets in its throat or between its jaws.

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**Who acts:** skulking · **What happens:** skulk, hide · **To what, where:** wolf, precious secrets, throat, squirrel · **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 Unfinished Boat. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (skulking), 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:pg66819:13:137
# text = “Perhaps a squirrel, perhaps a summer reindeer, or perhaps a gray and skulking wolf is hiding the precious secrets in its throat or between its jaws.
1	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	4	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	Perhaps	perhaps	ADV	RB	_	4	advmod	_	_
3	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	4	det	_	_
4	squirrel	squirrel	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
5	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	9	punct	_	_
6	perhaps	perhaps	ADV	RB	_	9	advmod	_	_
7	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	9	det	_	_
8	summer	summer	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	9	compound	_	_
9	reindeer	reindeer	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	14	punct	_	_
11	or	or	CCONJ	CC	_	14	cc	_	_
12	perhaps	perhaps	ADV	RB	_	14	advmod	_	_
13	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	14	det	_	_
14	gray	gray	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	conj	_	_
15	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	19	cc	_	_
16	skulking	skulk	VERB	VBG	VerbForm=Ger	19	csubj	_	_
17	wolf	wolf	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	16	obj	_	_
18	is	be	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	19	aux	_	_
19	hiding	hide	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	14	conj	_	_
20	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	22	det	_	_
21	precious	precious	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	22	amod	_	_
22	secrets	secret	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	19	obj	_	_
23	in	in	ADP	IN	_	25	case	_	_
24	its	its	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	25	nmod:poss	_	_
25	throat	throat	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	19	obl	_	_
26	or	or	CCONJ	CC	_	29	cc	_	_
27	between	between	ADP	IN	_	29	case	_	_
28	its	its	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	29	nmod:poss	_	_
29	jaws	jaw	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	25	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
30	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **skulk** *in a quote* | gerund |  | wolf |  |  |  |  | vn run-51.3.2 «PP.location V NP»: agent=Initial\_Location wolf=Theme |
| 2 | **hide** *in a quote* | present · progressive | skulking | the precious secrets |  | wolf's throat or wolf's jaws |  |  | vn concealment-16-1 «NP V NP PP.location»: agent=Agent secret=Patient in throat=Location |

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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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