---
title: But, when my work was almost finished, lo! my tools failed me. — The Sampo: A Wonder Tale of the Old North · tree and pragmatics
description: But, when my work was almost finished, lo! my tools failed me. Who acts: tools, my. 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 93

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But, when my work was almost finished, lo! my tools failed me.

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**Who acts:** tools, my · **What happens:** finish, fail, work · **To what, where:** work, 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 (tools, my), 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:pg66819:14:93
# text = But, when my work was almost finished, lo! my tools failed me.
1	But	but	CCONJ	CC	_	8	cc	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	8	punct	_	_
3	when	when	ADV	WRB	PronType=Int	8	advmod	_	_
4	my	my	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Sing|Person=1|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	5	nmod:poss	_	_
5	work	work	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	8	nsubj:pass	_	_
6	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	8	aux:pass	_	_
7	almost	almost	ADV	RB	_	8	advmod	_	_
8	finished	finish	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	14	punct	_	_
10	lo	lo	INTJ	UH	_	14	discourse	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	!	!	PUNCT	.	_	10	punct	_	_
12	my	my	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Sing|Person=1|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	13	nmod:poss	_	_
13	tools	tool	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	14	nsubj	_	_
14	failed	fail	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	8	parataxis	_	_
15	me	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	14	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	8	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **finish** | past · passive |  | my work |  |  |  | almost *property* | vn stop-55.4-1-1 «NP V NP.eventuality»: subject=Eventuality |
| 2 | **fail** | past | my tools | me |  |  |  |  | vn succeed-74-3-1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent i=Eventuality |
| 3 | **work** |  | my |  |  |  |  |  | nom work «act intransitive»: poss=agent |

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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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