---
title: I was a fisherman, and I sailed too far from the shore. — The Sampo: A Wonder Tale of the Old North · tree and pragmatics
description: I was a fisherman, and I sailed too far from the shore. 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 61

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I was a fisherman, and I sailed too far from the shore.

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**Who acts:** I · **What happens:** be, sail · **To what, where:** fisherman, shore

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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:pg66819:14:61
# text = I was a fisherman, and I sailed too far from the shore.
1	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	4	nsubj	_	_
2	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	4	cop	_	_
3	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	4	det	_	_
4	fisherman	fisherman	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
5	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	8	punct	_	_
6	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	8	cc	_	_
7	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	8	nsubj	_	_
8	sailed	sail	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	4	acl:relcl	_	_
9	too	too	ADV	RB	_	10	advmod	_	_
10	far	far	ADV	RB	Degree=Pos	8	advmod	_	_
11	from	from	ADP	IN	_	13	case	_	_
12	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	13	det	_	_
13	shore	shore	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	8	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 | **is a** | past | I | a fisherman |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **sail** | past | I | a fisherman *not said here* |  | the shore |  | far *property* | vn nonvehicle-51.4.2-1 «NP V NP PP.location»: agent=Agent fisherman=Theme from shore=Trajectory |

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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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