---
title: It sounded as though a score of watchdogs were barking in concert. — The Sampo: A Wonder Tale of the Old North · tree and pragmatics
description: It sounded as though a score of watchdogs were barking in concert. Who acts: It, score. A sentence of «The Sampo: A Wonder Tale of the Old North» by James Baldwin, The Barking Dogs, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Sampo: A Wonder Tale of the Old North, The Barking Dogs, sentence 18

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It sounded as though a score of watchdogs were barking in concert.

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**Who acts:** It, score · **What happens:** sound, bark, score · **To what, where:** concert, watchdogs

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This is a sentence of «The Sampo: A Wonder Tale of the Old North» by James Baldwin, The Barking Dogs. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (It, score), 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:pg66819:22:18
# text = It sounded as though a score of watchdogs were barking in concert.
1	It	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	2	nsubj	_	_
2	sounded	sound	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	as	as	ADV	RB	_	2	advmod	_	_
4	though	though	SCONJ	IN	_	10	mark	_	_
5	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	6	det	_	_
6	score	score	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	10	nsubj	_	_
7	of	of	ADP	IN	_	8	case	_	_
8	watchdogs	watchdog	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	6	nmod	_	_
9	were	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	10	aux	_	_
10	barking	bark	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	2	advcl	_	_
11	in	in	ADP	IN	_	12	case	_	_
12	concert	concert	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	10	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **sound** | past | It |  |  |  |  |  | vn stimulus\_subject-30.4 «NP V PP.attribute»: agent=Stimulus |
| 2 | **bark** | past · progressive | a score of watchdogs |  |  | concert |  |  | vn animal\_sounds-38 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 3 | **score** |  |  | watchdogs |  |  |  |  | nom score «cognition transitive»: of=patient |

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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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