---
title: At length, however, his tongue was loosened in prayer; it moved in h… — The Sampo: A Wonder Tale of the Old North · tree and pragmatics
description: At length, however, his tongue was loosened in prayer; it moved in his mouth, but uttered not even a whisper. Who acts: prayer. 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.
---

<!-- md -->
[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg66819/15/52/)

<!-- crumbs -->
[home](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) / [corpora](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/) / [tales](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/) / [The Sampo: A Wonder Tale of the Old No…](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg66819/) / [The Hag of the Rock](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg66819/15/) / 52

# The Sampo: A Wonder Tale of the Old North, The Hag of the Rock, sentence 52

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
At length, however, his tongue was loosened in prayer; it moved in his mouth, but uttered not even a whisper.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** prayer · **What happens:** loosen, move, not utter · **To what, where:** tongue, length, mouth, whisper

<!-- .vabout -->
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 (prayer), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

<!-- .note-en -->
**Mova's own parse.** This tree may be wrong.

## The tree {#tree}

```conllu
# sent_id = book:pg66819:15:52
# text = At length, however, his tongue was loosened in prayer; it moved in his mouth, but uttered not even a whisper.
1	At	at	ADP	IN	_	2	case	_	_
2	length	length	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	9	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
3	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	2	punct	_	_
4	however	however	ADV	RB	_	9	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
5	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	4	punct	_	_
6	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	7	nmod:poss	_	_
7	tongue	tongue	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	9	nsubj:pass	_	_
8	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	9	aux:pass	_	_
9	loosened	loosen	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	0	root	_	_
10	in	in	ADP	IN	_	11	case	_	_
11	prayer	prayer	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	9	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	;	;	PUNCT	:	_	14	punct	_	_
13	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	14	nsubj	_	_
14	moved	move	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	9	parataxis	_	_
15	in	in	ADP	IN	_	17	case	_	_
16	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	17	nmod:poss	_	_
17	mouth	mouth	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	14	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
18	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	20	punct	_	_
19	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	20	cc	_	_
20	uttered	utter	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	14	conj	_	_
21	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	20	advmod	_	_
22	even	even	ADV	RB	_	24	advmod	_	_
23	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	24	det	_	_
24	whisper	whisper	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	20	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
25	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	9	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **loosen** | past · passive |  | silence's tongue |  | length |  | in prayer; however *property* | vn other\_cos-45.4 «NP V NP.patient»: subject=Patient |
| 2 | **move** | past | prayer |  |  | silence's mouth |  |  | vn roll-51.3.1 «NP V PP.trajectory»: agent=Theme in mouth=Trajectory |
| 3 | **not** **utter** *speech: other* | past | prayer *not said here* | a whisper |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1 «NP V how S»: agent=Agent |

<!-- .note -->
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.

<!-- div src -->

**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.

<!-- /div -->

<!-- pn -->
- ← previous: [sentence 51](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg66819/15/51/)
- next →: [sentence 53](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg66819/15/53/)
- ↑ back to [The Hag of the Rock](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg66819/15/)