---
title: He put his half-closed right hand to his eye and looked through it a… — The Sampo: A Wonder Tale of the Old North · tree and pragmatics
description: He put his half-closed right hand to his eye and looked through it as men sometimes in these later days look through a spy-glass. Who acts: beast. 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 89

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He put his half-closed right hand to his eye and looked through it as men sometimes in these later days look through a spy-glass.

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**Who acts:** beast · **What happens:** put, close, look · **To what, where:** closed right hand

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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 (beast), 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:pg66819:22:89
# text = He put his half-closed right hand to his eye and looked through it as men sometimes in these later days look through a spy-glass.
1	He	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	2	nsubj	_	_
2	put	put	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	8	nmod:poss	_	_
4	half	half	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing|NumForm=Word|NumType=Frac	6	compound	_	SpaceAfter=No
5	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	4	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	closed	close	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	8	amod	_	_
7	right	right	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	8	amod	_	_
8	hand	hand	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	2	obj	_	_
9	to	to	ADP	IN	_	11	case	_	_
10	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	11	nmod:poss	_	_
11	eye	eye	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	2	obl	_	_
12	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	13	cc	_	_
13	looked	look	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	2	conj	_	_
14	through	through	ADP	IN	_	15	case	_	_
15	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	13	obl	_	_
16	as	as	ADP	IN	_	17	case	_	_
17	men	man	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	13	obl	_	_
18	sometimes	sometimes	ADV	RB	PronType=Ind	23	advmod	_	_
19	in	in	ADP	IN	_	22	case	_	_
20	these	this	DET	DT	Number=Plur|PronType=Dem	22	det	_	_
21	later	late	ADJ	JJR	Degree=Cmp	22	amod	_	_
22	days	day	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	23	obl	_	_
23	look	look	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=2|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	13	advcl	_	_
24	through	through	ADP	IN	_	28	case	_	_
25	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	28	det	_	_
26	spy	spy	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	28	compound	_	SpaceAfter=No
27	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	26	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
28	glass	glass	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	23	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
29	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **put** | past | beast | beast's closed right hand |  |  |  | to beast's eye | vn invest-13.5.4-1 «NP V PP»: agent=Agent hand=Goal |
| 2 | **close** | participle |  |  |  |  |  | half *compound* | vn other\_cos-45.4 «NP.patient V»: agent=Patient |
| 3 | **look** | past | beast *not said here* |  |  |  |  | as men; through eye | vn peer-30.3 «NP V PP.theme»: agent=Agent through it=Theme |
| 4 | **look** | present | beast *not said here* |  |  |  | day | through a spy glass; sometimes *property* | vn peer-30.3 «NP V PP.theme»: agent=Agent through glass=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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