---
title: His mouth was a yawning cavern flanked by teeth of whitest marble. — The Sampo: A Wonder Tale of the Old North · tree and pragmatics
description: His mouth was a yawning cavern flanked by teeth of whitest marble. Who acts: mouth. A sentence of «The Sampo: A Wonder Tale of the Old North» by James Baldwin, The Wisdom Keeper, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Sampo: A Wonder Tale of the Old North, The Wisdom Keeper, sentence 75

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His mouth was a yawning cavern flanked by teeth of whitest marble.

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**Who acts:** mouth · **What happens:** yawn, be, flank · **To what, where:** yawning cavern

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This is a sentence of «The Sampo: A Wonder Tale of the Old North» by James Baldwin, The Wisdom Keeper. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (mouth), 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:pg66819:17:75
# text = His mouth was a yawning cavern flanked by teeth of whitest marble.
1	His	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	2	nmod:poss	_	_
2	mouth	mouth	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	nsubj	_	_
3	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	6	cop	_	_
4	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	6	det	_	_
5	yawning	yawn	VERB	VBG	VerbForm=Ger	6	amod	_	_
6	cavern	cavern	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	0	root	_	_
7	flanked	flank	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	6	acl	_	_
8	by	by	ADP	IN	_	9	case	_	_
9	teeth	tooth	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	7	obl	_	_
10	of	of	ADP	IN	_	12	case	_	_
11	whitest	white	ADJ	JJS	Degree=Sup	12	amod	_	_
12	marble	marble	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	9	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	6	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **yawn** | gerund |  |  |  |  |  |  | vn nonverbal\_expression-40.2 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 2 | **is a** | past | planter's mouth | a yawning cavern |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 3 | **flank** | participle |  | a yawning cavern *not said here* |  |  |  | by teeth of whitest marble | vn contiguous\_location-47.8 «NP V NP»: agent=Theme |

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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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