---
title: The sun had not been able to rise above the horizon and short was th… — The Sampo: A Wonder Tale of the Old North · tree and pragmatics
description: The sun had not been able to rise above the horizon and short was the interval between night and night. Who acts: sun, able. 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 2

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The sun had not been able to rise above the horizon and short was the interval between night and night.

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**Who acts:** sun, able · **What happens:** not be, rise, be · **To what, where:** horizon, interval

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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 (sun, able), 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:pg66819:16:2
# text = The sun had not been able to rise above the horizon and short was the interval between night and night.
1	The	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	2	det	_	_
2	sun	sun	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	nsubj	_	_
3	had	have	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	6	aux	_	_
4	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	6	advmod	_	_
5	been	be	AUX	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part	6	cop	_	_
6	able	able	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	16	nsubj	_	_
7	to	to	PART	TO	_	8	mark	_	_
8	rise	rise	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	6	xcomp	_	_
9	above	above	ADP	IN	_	11	case	_	_
10	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	11	det	_	_
11	horizon	horizon	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	8	obl	_	_
12	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	13	cc	_	_
13	short	short	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	6	conj	_	_
14	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	16	cop	_	_
15	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	16	det	_	_
16	interval	interval	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	0	root	_	_
17	between	between	ADP	IN	_	18	case	_	_
18	night	night	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	16	nmod	_	_
19	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	20	cc	_	_
20	night	night	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	16	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
21	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	16	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **not** **is** | past · perfect | the sun |  |  |  |  | able *property* | tree rules |
| 2 | **rise** | to-infinitive | the sun *not said here* |  |  | the horizon |  |  | vn assuming\_position-50 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Agent above horizon=Location |
| 3 | **be** |  | the sun *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 4 | **is a** | past | able | the interval and night |  |  | night |  | tree rules |

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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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