---
title: The road was exceeding rough, and perils beset him at every step. — The Sampo: A Wonder Tale of the Old North · tree and pragmatics
description: The road was exceeding rough, and perils beset him at every step. Who acts: road, perils. A sentence of «The Sampo: A Wonder Tale of the Old North» by James Baldwin, The Land of Tuonela, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Sampo: A Wonder Tale of the Old North, The Land of Tuonela, sentence 15

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The road was exceeding rough, and perils beset him at every step.

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**Who acts:** road, perils · **What happens:** exceed, beset · **To what, where:** E

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This is a sentence of «The Sampo: A Wonder Tale of the Old North» by James Baldwin, The Land of Tuonela. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (road, perils), 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:pg66819:14:15
# text = The road was exceeding rough, and perils beset him at every step.
1	The	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	2	det	_	_
2	road	road	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	nsubj	_	_
3	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	4	aux	_	_
4	exceeding	exceed	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	0	root	_	_
5	rough	rough	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	4	xcomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	9	punct	_	_
7	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	9	cc	_	_
8	perils	peril	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	9	nsubj	_	_
9	beset	beset	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	4	conj	_	_
10	him	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	9	obj	_	_
11	at	at	ADP	IN	_	13	case	_	_
12	every	every	DET	DT	PronType=Tot	13	det	_	_
13	step	step	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	9	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **exceed** | past · progressive | the road |  |  |  |  | rough *property* | vn exceed-90 «NP V NP»: agent=Pivot |
| 2 | **beset** | present | perils | E |  |  |  | at every step | 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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