---
title: It is fine sport to lay traps for those red-beaked waterfowl, and be… — The Sampo: A Wonder Tale of the Old North · tree and pragmatics
description: It is fine sport to lay traps for those red-beaked waterfowl, and better still to shoot them on the wing. Who acts: water. 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.
---

<!-- md -->
[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg66819/19/68/)

<!-- crumbs -->
[home](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) / [corpora](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/) / [tales](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/) / [The Sampo: A Wonder Tale of the Old No…](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg66819/) / [The Maid of the Morning](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg66819/19/) / 68

# The Sampo: A Wonder Tale of the Old North, The Maid of the Morning, sentence 68

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
It is fine sport to lay traps for those red-beaked waterfowl, and better still to shoot them on the wing.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** water · **What happens:** be, lay, beak, shoot · **To what, where:** fine sport, traps, wing

<!-- .vabout -->
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: who acts (water), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

<!-- .note-en -->
**Mova's own parse.** This tree may be wrong.

## The tree {#tree}

```conllu
# sent_id = book:pg66819:19:68
# text = It is fine sport to lay traps for those red-beaked waterfowl, and better still to shoot them on the wing.
1	It	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	4	nsubj	_	_
2	is	be	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	4	cop	_	_
3	fine	fine	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	4	amod	_	_
4	sport	sport	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	0	root	_	_
5	to	to	PART	TO	_	6	mark	_	_
6	lay	lay	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	4	acl	_	_
7	traps	trap	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	6	obj	_	_
8	for	for	ADP	IN	_	13	case	_	_
9	those	that	DET	DT	Number=Plur|PronType=Dem	13	det	_	_
10	red	red	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	12	compound	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	10	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	beaked	beak	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	13	amod	_	_
13	waterfowl	waterfowl	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	19	punct	_	_
15	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	19	cc	_	_
16	better	well	ADV	RBR	Degree=Cmp	17	advmod	_	_
17	still	still	ADV	RB	_	19	advmod	_	_
18	to	to	PART	TO	_	19	mark	_	_
19	shoot	shoot	VERB	VB	Mood=Imp|VerbForm=Fin	4	parataxis	_	_
20	them	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	19	obj	_	_
21	on	on	ADP	IN	_	23	case	_	_
22	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	23	det	_	_
23	wing	wing	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	19	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
24	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is a** | present | water | fine sport |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **lay** | to-infinitive |  | traps |  |  |  | for that beaked waterfowl | vn create-26.4 «NP V NP PP.beneficiary»: agent=Agent trap=Result for waterfowl=Beneficiary |
| 3 | **beak** | participle |  |  |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 4 | **shoot** | to-infinitive |  | traps *= trap* |  | the wing | still |  | vn throw-17.1-1 «NP V NP PP.destinations»: agent=Agent they=Theme on wing=Destination |

<!-- .note -->
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.

<!-- div src -->

**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.

<!-- /div -->

<!-- pn -->
- ← previous: [sentence 67](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg66819/19/67/)
- next →: [sentence 69](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg66819/19/69/)
- ↑ back to [The Maid of the Morning](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg66819/19/)