---
title: Whisper your light songs to the birds, and let them nest among your… — The Sampo: A Wonder Tale of the Old North · tree and pragmatics
description: Whisper your light songs to the birds, and let them nest among your branches. Who acts: you, songs, your. 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 69

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
Whisper your light songs to the birds, and let them nest among your branches.

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**Who acts:** you, songs, your · **What happens:** whisper, let, nest, sing · **To what, where:** light songs, birds, songs

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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 (you, songs, your), 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:pg66819:13:69
# text = Whisper your light songs to the birds, and let them nest among your branches.
1	Whisper	whisper	VERB	VB	Mood=Imp|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
2	your	your	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Person=2|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	4	nmod:poss	_	_
3	light	light	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	compound	_	_
4	songs	song	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	1	obj	_	_
5	to	to	ADP	IN	_	7	case	_	_
6	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	7	det	_	_
7	birds	bird	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	1	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	10	punct	_	_
9	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	10	cc	_	_
10	let	let	VERB	VB	Mood=Imp|VerbForm=Fin	1	conj	_	_
11	them	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	10	obj	_	_
12	nest	nest	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	10	xcomp	_	_
13	among	among	ADP	IN	_	15	case	_	_
14	your	your	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Person=2|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	15	nmod:poss	_	_
15	branches	branch	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	12	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	1	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **whisper** *speech: assert* | imperative | you *not said here* | your light songs | the birds |  |  |  | vn manner\_speaking-37.3 «NP V NP PP.recipient»: agent=Agent song=Topic to bird=Recipient |
| 2 | **let** | infinitive | you *not said here* | songs *= song* |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 3 | **nest** | infinitive | songs *= song* *not said here* |  |  |  |  | among your branches | vn berry-13.7 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 4 | **sing** |  | your |  |  |  |  |  | nom song «communication intransitive»: poss=agent |

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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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