---
title: The decks were littered with poles and lines and fishing spears. — The Sampo: A Wonder Tale of the Old North · tree and pragmatics
description: The decks were littered with poles and lines and fishing spears. A sentence of «The Sampo: A Wonder Tale of the Old North» by James Baldwin, The Maid of the Morning, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Sampo: A Wonder Tale of the Old North, The Maid of the Morning, sentence 58

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The decks were littered with poles and lines and fishing spears.

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**What happens:** litter · **To what, where:** decks

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This is a sentence of «The Sampo: A Wonder Tale of the Old North» by James Baldwin, The Maid of the Morning. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: 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:pg66819:19:58
# text = The decks were littered with poles and lines and fishing spears.
1	The	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	2	det	_	_
2	decks	deck	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	4	nsubj:pass	_	_
3	were	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	4	aux:pass	_	_
4	littered	litter	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	0	root	_	_
5	with	with	ADP	IN	_	6	case	_	_
6	poles	pole	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	4	obl	_	_
7	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	8	cc	_	_
8	lines	line	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	6	conj	_	_
9	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	11	cc	_	_
10	fishing	fishing	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	11	compound	_	_
11	spears	spear	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	6	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **litter** | past · passive |  | the decks |  |  |  | with poles and lines and fishing spears | vn fill-9.8 «NP V NP PP.theme»: subject=Destination with pole=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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