---
title: At first nothing but boiling vapor, scalding steam, shapeless white… — The Sampo: A Wonder Tale of the Old North · tree and pragmatics
description: At first nothing but boiling vapor, scalding steam, shapeless white clouds could be distinguished. A sentence of «The Sampo: A Wonder Tale of the Old North» by James Baldwin, The Field of Serpents, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Sampo: A Wonder Tale of the Old North, The Field of Serpents, sentence 87

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At first nothing but boiling vapor, scalding steam, shapeless white clouds could be distinguished.

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**What happens:** boil, scald, distinguish · **To what, where:** steam, shapeless white clouds, nothing

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This is a sentence of «The Sampo: A Wonder Tale of the Old North» by James Baldwin, The Field of Serpents. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: 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:pg66819:24:87
# text = At first nothing but boiling vapor, scalding steam, shapeless white clouds could be distinguished.
1	At	at	ADP	IN	_	3	case	_	_
2	first	first	ADV	RB	NumForm=Word|NumType=Ord	3	advmod	_	_
3	nothing	nothing	PRON	NN	Number=Sing|PronType=Neg	16	obl	_	_
4	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	6	cc	_	_
5	boiling	boil	VERB	VBG	VerbForm=Ger	6	amod	_	_
6	vapor	vapor	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	8	punct	_	_
8	scalding	scald	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	3	conj	_	_
9	steam	steam	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	8	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	3	punct	_	_
11	shapeless	shapeless	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	13	amod	_	_
12	white	white	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	13	amod	_	_
13	clouds	cloud	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	16	nsubj:pass	_	_
14	could	could	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	16	aux	_	_
15	be	be	AUX	VB	VerbForm=Inf	16	aux:pass	_	_
16	distinguished	distinguish	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	16	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **boil** | gerund |  |  |  |  |  |  | vn cooking-45.3 «NP.patient V»: agent=Patient |
| 2 | **scald** | gerund |  | steam |  |  |  |  | vn cooking-45.3 «NP V NP.patient»: agent=Agent steam=Patient |
| 3 | **distinguish** | could · passive |  | shapeless white clouds |  | nothing  boiling vapor |  |  | vn distinguish-23.5-1 «NP V NP PP»: subject=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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