---
title: Yesterday, as I was felling a tree, your father, Tuoni, smote me. — The Sampo: A Wonder Tale of the Old North · tree and pragmatics
description: Yesterday, as I was felling a tree, your father, Tuoni, smote me. Who acts: I. 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 40

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Yesterday, as I was felling a tree, your father, Tuoni, smote me.

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**Who acts:** I · **What happens:** fell, smote · **To what, where:** tree, me

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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 (I), 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:pg66819:14:40
# text = Yesterday, as I was felling a tree, your father, Tuoni, smote me.
1	Yesterday	yesterday	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	obl:unmarked	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	6	punct	_	_
3	as	as	SCONJ	IN	_	6	mark	_	_
4	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	6	nsubj	_	_
5	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	6	aux	_	_
6	felling	fell	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	0	root	_	_
7	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	8	det	_	_
8	tree	tree	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	11	punct	_	_
10	your	your	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Person=2|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	11	nmod:poss	_	_
11	father	father	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	advcl	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	13	punct	_	_
13	Tuoni	Tuoni	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	11	appos	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	15	punct	_	_
15	smote	smote	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	6	conj	_	_
16	me	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	15	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	6	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **fell** | past · progressive | I | a tree |  |  | yesterday | your father *advcl* | tree rules |
| 2 | **smote** | infinitive | I *not said here* | me |  |  |  |  | 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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