---
title: “Now spread your nets cunningly wherever a fish may attempt to swim,… — The Sampo: A Wonder Tale of the Old North · tree and pragmatics
description: “Now spread your nets cunningly wherever a fish may attempt to swim,” said the hag. Who acts: fish, hag. A sentence of «The Sampo: A Wonder Tale of the Old North» by James Baldwin, The Hag of the Rock, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Sampo: A Wonder Tale of the Old North, The Hag of the Rock, sentence 32

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“Now spread your nets cunningly wherever a fish may attempt to swim,” said the hag.

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**Who acts:** fish, hag · **What happens:** spread, attempt, swim, say · **To what, where:** nets · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «The Sampo: A Wonder Tale of the Old North» by James Baldwin, The Hag of the Rock. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (fish, hag), 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:pg66819:15:32
# text = “Now spread your nets cunningly wherever a fish may attempt to swim,” said the hag.
1	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	3	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	Now	now	ADV	RB	PronType=Dem	3	advmod	_	_
3	spread	spread	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	16	ccomp	_	_
4	your	your	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Person=2|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	5	nmod:poss	_	_
5	nets	net	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	3	obj	_	_
6	cunningly	cunningly	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	3	xcomp	_	_
7	wherever	wherever	ADV	WRB	PronType=Int	11	advmod	_	_
8	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	9	det	_	_
9	fish	fish	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	11	nsubj	_	_
10	may	may	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	11	aux	_	_
11	attempt	attempt	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	3	advcl	_	_
12	to	to	PART	TO	_	13	mark	_	_
13	swim	swim	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	11	xcomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	3	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	3	punct	_	_
16	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
17	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	18	det	_	_
18	hag	hag	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	16	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
19	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	16	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **spread** *in a quote* | infinitive |  | your nets |  |  | now | cunningly *property* | vn appear-48.1.1 «PP.location V NP»: agent=Location net=Theme |
| 2 | **attempt** *in a quote* | may | a fish |  |  |  |  | wherever *property* | vn try-61.1 «NP V S\_INF»: agent=Agent clause=Eventuality |
| 3 | **swim** *not said to happen, in a quote* | to-infinitive | a fish *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn run-51.3.2-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 4 | **say** *speech: assert* | past | the hag |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent clause=Topic |

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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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