---
title: The field was full of horrid reptiles, crawling, writhing, hissing. — The Sampo: A Wonder Tale of the Old North · tree and pragmatics
description: The field was full of horrid reptiles, crawling, writhing, hissing. Who acts: field. 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.
---

<!-- md -->
[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg66819/24/97/)

<!-- 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 Field of Serpents](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg66819/24/) / 97

# The Sampo: A Wonder Tale of the Old North, The Field of Serpents, sentence 97

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
The field was full of horrid reptiles, crawling, writhing, hissing.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** field · **What happens:** be, hiss

<!-- .vabout -->
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: who acts (field), 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:pg66819:24:97
# text = The field was full of horrid reptiles, crawling, writhing, hissing.
1	The	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	2	det	_	_
2	field	field	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	nsubj	_	_
3	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	4	cop	_	_
4	full	full	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	0	root	_	_
5	of	of	ADP	IN	_	7	case	_	_
6	horrid	horrid	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	7	amod	_	_
7	reptiles	reptile	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	4	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	9	punct	_	_
9	crawling	crawling	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	11	punct	_	_
11	writhing	writhing	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	13	punct	_	_
13	hissing	hiss	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	4	parataxis	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is** | past | the field |  |  |  |  | of horrid reptiles and crawling and writhing; full *property* | tree rules |
| 2 | **hiss** | gerund |  |  |  |  |  |  | vn manner\_speaking-37.3 «NP V»: agent=Agent |

<!-- .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 96](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg66819/24/96/)
- next →: [sentence 98](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg66819/24/98/)
- ↑ back to [The Field of Serpents](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg66819/24/)