---
title: It was midwinter in Wainola, and the shortest day of the year. — The Sampo: A Wonder Tale of the Old North · tree and pragmatics
description: It was midwinter in Wainola, and the shortest day of the year. Who acts: It. A sentence of «The Sampo: A Wonder Tale of the Old North» by James Baldwin, The Hero’s Return, 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/pg66819/16/1/)

<!-- 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 Hero’s Return](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg66819/16/) / 1

# The Sampo: A Wonder Tale of the Old North, The Hero’s Return, sentence 1

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
It was midwinter in Wainola, and the shortest day of the year.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** It · **What happens:** be · **To what, where:** midwinter, Wainola

<!-- .vabout -->
This is a sentence of «The Sampo: A Wonder Tale of the Old North» by James Baldwin, The Hero’s Return. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (It), 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:pg66819:16:1
# text = It was midwinter in Wainola, and the shortest day of the year.
1	It	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	3	nsubj	_	_
2	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	3	cop	_	_
3	midwinter	midwinter	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	0	root	_	_
4	in	in	ADP	IN	_	5	case	_	_
5	Wainola	Wainola	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	3	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	10	punct	_	_
7	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	10	cc	_	_
8	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	10	det	_	_
9	shortest	short	ADJ	JJS	Degree=Sup	10	amod	_	_
10	day	day	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	conj	_	_
11	of	of	ADP	IN	_	13	case	_	_
12	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	13	det	_	_
13	year	year	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	10	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is a** | past | It | midwinter and the shortest day of the year |  | Wainola |  |  | tree rules |

<!-- .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: [The Hag of the Rock, 76](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg66819/15/76/)
- next →: [sentence 2](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg66819/16/2/)
- ↑ back to [The Hero’s Return](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg66819/16/)