---
title: He struck it lightly with his sharp axe-blade, and every needle on i… — The Sampo: A Wonder Tale of the Old North · tree and pragmatics
description: He struck it lightly with his sharp axe-blade, and every needle on its branches shrieked as though in sudden terror. Who acts: keel. 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 73

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He struck it lightly with his sharp axe-blade, and every needle on its branches shrieked as though in sudden terror.

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**Who acts:** keel · **What happens:** strike, shriek · **To what, where:** axe, needle, sudden terror

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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 (keel), 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:pg66819:13:73
# text = He struck it lightly with his sharp axe-blade, and every needle on its branches shrieked as though in sudden terror.
1	He	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	2	nsubj	_	_
2	struck	strike	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	2	obj	_	_
4	lightly	lightly	ADV	RB	_	2	advmod	_	_
5	with	with	ADP	IN	_	10	case	_	_
6	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	10	nmod:poss	_	_
7	sharp	sharp	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	10	amod	_	_
8	axe	axe	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	10	compound	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	8	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	blade	blade	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	2	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	18	punct	_	_
12	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	18	cc	_	_
13	every	every	DET	DT	PronType=Tot	14	det	_	_
14	needle	needle	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	18	nsubj:pass	_	_
15	on	on	ADP	IN	_	17	case	_	_
16	its	its	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	17	nmod:poss	_	_
17	branches	branch	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	14	nmod	_	_
18	shrieked	shriek	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	2	conj	_	_
19	as	as	ADV	RB	_	20	advmod	_	_
20	though	though	ADV	RB	_	18	advmod	_	_
21	in	in	ADP	IN	_	23	case	_	_
22	sudden	sudden	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	23	amod	_	_
23	terror	terror	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	18	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
24	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **strike** | past | keel | axe |  |  |  | with keel's sharp axe blade; lightly *property* | vn hit-18.1-1 «NP V NP PP.instrument»: agent=Agent it=Patient with blade=Instrument |
| 2 | **shriek** | participle · passive |  | every needle on needle's branches |  | sudden terror |  | though *property* | vn sound\_emission-43.2 «PP.location V NP»: subject=Theme |

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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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