---
title: Three years ago I saw her sitting on a rainbow and spinning threads… — The Sampo: A Wonder Tale of the Old North · tree and pragmatics
description: Three years ago I saw her sitting on a rainbow and spinning threads of silver. Who acts: I, Mistress. 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.
---

<!-- md -->
[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg66819/23/61/)

<!-- 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 Old Man’s Wooing](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg66819/23/) / 61

# The Sampo: A Wonder Tale of the Old North, The Old Man’s Wooing, sentence 61

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
Three years ago I saw her sitting on a rainbow and spinning threads of silver.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** I, Mistress · **What happens:** see, sit, spin · **To what, where:** Mistress, rainbow, threads

<!-- .vabout -->
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 (I, Mistress), 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:pg66819:23:61
# text = Three years ago I saw her sitting on a rainbow and spinning threads of silver.
1	Three	three	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	2	nummod	_	_
2	years	year	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	3	obl:unmarked	_	_
3	ago	ago	ADV	RB	_	5	advmod	_	_
4	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	5	nsubj	_	_
5	saw	see	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
6	her	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	5	obj	_	_
7	sitting	sit	VERB	VBG	VerbForm=Ger	5	xcomp	_	_
8	on	on	ADP	IN	_	10	case	_	_
9	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	10	det	_	_
10	rainbow	rainbow	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	obl	_	_
11	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	12	cc	_	_
12	spinning	spin	VERB	VBG	VerbForm=Ger	7	conj	_	_
13	threads	thread	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	12	obj	_	_
14	of	of	ADP	IN	_	15	case	_	_
15	silver	silver	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	13	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	5	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **see** | past | I | Mistress |  |  |  | ago *property* | tree rules |
| 2 | **sit** | gerund | Mistress *not said here* |  |  | a rainbow |  |  | vn assuming\_position-50 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Agent on rainbow=Location |
| 3 | **spin** | gerund | Mistress *not said here* | threads of silver |  |  |  |  | vn roll-51.3.1 «NP V NP.theme»: agent=Agent thread=Theme |

<!-- .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 60](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg66819/23/60/)
- next →: [sentence 62](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg66819/23/62/)
- ↑ back to [The Old Man’s Wooing](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg66819/23/)