---
title: They sat gossiping and nodding beside their cheerful hearth-fires, a… — The Sampo: A Wonder Tale of the Old North · tree and pragmatics
description: They sat gossiping and nodding beside their cheerful hearth-fires, and were glad that their lives had been cast in the pleasant Land of Heroes. Who acts: villagers. 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 pragmat
---

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# The Sampo: A Wonder Tale of the Old North, The Hero’s Return, sentence 7

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They sat gossiping and nodding beside their cheerful hearth-fires, and were glad that their lives had been cast in the pleasant Land of Heroes.

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**Who acts:** villagers · **What happens:** sit, gossip, nod, be, cast, fire · **To what, where:** cheerful hearth fires, lives, pleasant Land

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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 (villagers), 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:pg66819:16:7
# text = They sat gossiping and nodding beside their cheerful hearth-fires, and were glad that their lives had been cast in the pleasant Land of Heroes.
1	They	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	2	nsubj	_	_
2	sat	sit	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	gossiping	gossip	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	2	advcl	_	_
4	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	5	cc	_	_
5	nodding	nod	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	3	conj	_	_
6	beside	beside	ADP	IN	_	11	case	_	_
7	their	their	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Plur|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	11	nmod:poss	_	_
8	cheerful	cheerful	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	11	amod	_	_
9	hearth	hearth	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	11	compound	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	9	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	fires	fire	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	5	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	15	punct	_	_
13	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	15	cc	_	_
14	were	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	15	cop	_	_
15	glad	glad	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	2	parataxis	_	_
16	that	that	SCONJ	IN	_	21	mark	_	_
17	their	their	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Plur|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	18	nmod:poss	_	_
18	lives	life	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	21	nsubj:pass	_	_
19	had	have	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	21	aux	_	_
20	been	be	AUX	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part	21	aux:pass	_	_
21	cast	cast	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	15	advcl	_	_
22	in	in	ADP	IN	_	25	case	_	_
23	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	25	det	_	_
24	pleasant	pleasant	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	25	amod	_	_
25	Land	land	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	21	obl	_	_
26	of	of	ADP	IN	_	27	case	_	_
27	Heroes	hero	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	25	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
28	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **sit** | past | villagers *= villager* |  |  |  |  |  | vn assuming\_position-50 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 2 | **gossip** *speech: other* | gerund | villagers *= villager* *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn chit\_chat-37.6 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 3 | **nod** | gerund | villagers *= villager* *not said here* |  |  | villagers's cheerful hearth fires |  |  | vn wink-40.3.1 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 4 | **is** | past |  |  |  |  |  | glad *property* | tree rules |
| 5 | **cast** | past · perfect · passive |  | villagers's lives |  | the pleasant Land of Heroes |  |  | vn throw-17.1 «NP V NP PP.destinations»: subject=Theme in land=Destination |
| 6 | **fire** |  | villagers *= villager* |  |  |  |  |  | nom fire «event transitive»: poss=agent |

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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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