---
title: My branches are hollow; a grub has eaten my heart. — The Sampo: A Wonder Tale of the Old North · tree and pragmatics
description: My branches are hollow; a grub has eaten my heart. Who acts: branches. A sentence of «The Sampo: A Wonder Tale of the Old North» by James Baldwin, The Unfinished Boat, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Sampo: A Wonder Tale of the Old North, The Unfinished Boat, sentence 65

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My branches are hollow; a grub has eaten my heart.

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**Who acts:** branches · **What happens:** be, eat · **To what, where:** grub

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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 (branches), 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:pg66819:13:65
# text = My branches are hollow; a grub has eaten my heart.
1	My	my	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Sing|Person=1|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	2	nmod:poss	_	_
2	branches	branch	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	4	nsubj	_	_
3	are	be	AUX	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	4	cop	_	_
4	hollow	hollow	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
5	;	;	PUNCT	,	_	9	punct	_	_
6	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	7	det	_	_
7	grub	grub	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	9	nsubj:pass	_	_
8	has	have	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	9	aux	_	_
9	eaten	eat	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	4	conj	_	_
10	my	my	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Sing|Person=1|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	11	nmod:poss	_	_
11	heart	heart	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	9	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is** | present | My branches |  |  |  |  | hollow *property* | tree rules |
| 2 | **eat** | present · perfect · passive |  | a grub |  |  |  | my heart *obj* | 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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