---
title: “Three times this summer a crow has sat on one of my branches, croak… — The Sampo: A Wonder Tale of the Old North · tree and pragmatics
description: “Three times this summer a crow has sat on one of my branches, croaking misfortune and foretelling disaster.” 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 83

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“Three times this summer a crow has sat on one of my branches, croaking misfortune and foretelling disaster.”

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**What happens:** sit, croak, foretell · **To what, where:** Three times, misfortune, disaster

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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: 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:pg66819:13:83
# text = “Three times this summer a crow has sat on one of my branches, croaking misfortune and foretelling disaster.”
1	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	9	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	Three	three	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	3	nummod	_	_
3	times	time	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	9	nsubj:pass	_	_
4	this	this	DET	DT	Number=Sing|PronType=Dem	5	det	_	_
5	summer	summer	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	nmod:unmarked	_	_
6	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	7	det	_	_
7	crow	crow	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	sat	sit	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	0	root	_	_
10	on	on	ADP	IN	_	11	case	_	_
11	one	one	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	9	obl	_	_
12	of	of	ADP	IN	_	14	case	_	_
13	my	my	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Sing|Person=1|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	14	nmod:poss	_	_
14	branches	branch	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	11	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	16	punct	_	_
16	croaking	croak	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	9	advcl	_	_
17	misfortune	misfortune	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	16	obj	_	_
18	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	19	cc	_	_
19	foretelling	foretell	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	16	conj	_	_
20	disaster	disaster	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	19	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
21	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	9	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
22	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	9	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **sit** *in a quote* | present · perfect · passive |  | Three times  this summer |  |  |  | on one of my branches; a crow *nsubj:pass* | vn spatial\_configuration-47.6-1 «NP V NP.theme PP»: subject=Theme on one=Location |
| 2 | **croak** *in a quote* | gerund |  | misfortune |  |  |  |  | vn animal\_sounds-38 «NP V NP.theme»: agent=Agent misfortune=Theme |
| 3 | **foretell** *in a quote* | gerund |  | disaster |  |  |  |  | vn conjecture-29.5-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent disaster=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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