---
title: The lonely sea was before them, the lonelier meadows were behind. — The Sampo: A Wonder Tale of the Old North · tree and pragmatics
description: The lonely sea was before them, the lonelier meadows were behind. Who acts: lonely sea. 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 7

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The lonely sea was before them, the lonelier meadows were behind.

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**Who acts:** lonely sea · **What happens:** be

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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 (lonely sea), 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:pg66819:23:7
# text = The lonely sea was before them, the lonelier meadows were behind.
1	The	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	3	det	_	_
2	lonely	lonely	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	3	amod	_	_
3	sea	sea	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	12	nsubj	_	_
4	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	6	cop	_	_
5	before	before	ADP	IN	_	6	case	_	_
6	them	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	3	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	12	punct	_	_
8	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	10	det	_	_
9	lonelier	lonely	ADJ	JJR	Degree=Cmp	10	amod	_	_
10	meadows	meadow	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	12	nsubj	_	_
11	were	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	12	cop	_	_
12	behind	behind	ADV	RB	_	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	12	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is** | past |  |  |  |  | before garments *= garment* |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **is** | past | the lonely sea |  |  |  |  | the lonelier meadows *nsubj*; behind *property* | tree rules |

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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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