---
title: The swallows were flitting above them. — The Sampo: A Wonder Tale of the Old North · tree and pragmatics
description: The swallows were flitting above them. Who acts: swallows. A sentence of «The Sampo: A Wonder Tale of the Old North» by James Baldwin, The Old Man’s Wooing, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Sampo: A Wonder Tale of the Old North, The Old Man’s Wooing, sentence 6

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The swallows were flitting above them.

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**Who acts:** swallows · **What happens:** flit

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This is a sentence of «The Sampo: A Wonder Tale of the Old North» by James Baldwin, The Old Man’s Wooing. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (swallows), 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:pg66819:23:6
# text = The swallows were flitting above them.
1	The	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	2	det	_	_
2	swallows	swallow	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	4	nsubj	_	_
3	were	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	4	aux	_	_
4	flitting	flit	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	0	root	_	_
5	above	above	ADP	IN	_	6	case	_	_
6	them	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	4	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **flit** | past · progressive | the swallows |  |  |  |  | above garments *= garment* | vn run-51.3.2 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Theme above they=Trajectory |

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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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