---
title: It was the call of a human voice; but by whom was it uttered? — The Sampo: A Wonder Tale of the Old North · tree and pragmatics
description: It was the call of a human voice; but by whom was it uttered? Who acts: call. 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.
---

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# The Sampo: A Wonder Tale of the Old North, The Hero’s Return, sentence 14

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It was the call of a human voice; but by whom was it uttered?

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**Who acts:** call · **What happens:** be, utter · **To what, where:** call

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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 (call), 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:pg66819:16:14
# text = It was the call of a human voice; but by whom was it uttered?
1	It	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	4	nsubj	_	_
2	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	4	cop	_	_
3	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	4	det	_	_
4	call	call	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	0	root	_	_
5	of	of	ADP	IN	_	8	case	_	_
6	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	8	det	_	_
7	human	human	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	8	amod	_	_
8	voice	voice	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	;	;	PUNCT	,	_	15	punct	_	_
10	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	15	cc	_	_
11	by	by	ADP	IN	_	12	case	_	_
12	whom	whom	PRON	WP	PronType=Rel	15	obl	_	_
13	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	15	aux:pass	_	_
14	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	15	nsubj:pass	_	_
15	uttered	utter	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	4	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	?	?	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 | call | the call |  |  |  | of a human voice | tree rules |
| 2 | **utter** *speech: other* | past · passive | the call | call |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1 «NP V NP.topic»: agent=Agent subject=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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