---
title: Hundreds of brave fishermen have sought to snare him, but not one ha… — The Sampo: A Wonder Tale of the Old North · tree and pragmatics
description: Hundreds of brave fishermen have sought to snare him, but not one has lived to tell his story. Who acts: one. A sentence of «The Sampo: A Wonder Tale of the Old North» by James Baldwin, The Great Pike, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Sampo: A Wonder Tale of the Old North, The Great Pike, sentence 34

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Hundreds of brave fishermen have sought to snare him, but not one has lived to tell his story.

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**Who acts:** one · **What happens:** seek, snare, live, tell · **To what, where:** Hundreds, pike, story · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «The Sampo: A Wonder Tale of the Old North» by James Baldwin, The Great Pike. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (one), 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:pg66819:25:34
# text = Hundreds of brave fishermen have sought to snare him, but not one has lived to tell his story.
1	Hundreds	hundred	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	6	nsubj:pass	_	_
2	of	of	ADP	IN	_	4	case	_	_
3	brave	brave	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	4	amod	_	_
4	fishermen	fisherman	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	1	nmod	_	_
5	have	have	AUX	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	6	aux	_	_
6	sought	seek	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	0	root	_	_
7	to	to	PART	TO	_	8	mark	_	_
8	snare	snare	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	6	xcomp	_	_
9	him	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	8	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	15	punct	_	_
11	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	15	cc	_	_
12	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	13	advmod	_	_
13	one	one	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	15	nsubj	_	_
14	has	have	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	15	aux	_	_
15	lived	live	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part	6	conj	_	_
16	to	to	PART	TO	_	17	mark	_	_
17	tell	tell	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	15	xcomp	_	_
18	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	19	nmod:poss	_	_
19	story	story	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	17	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
20	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	6	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **seek** | present · perfect · passive |  | Hundreds of brave fishermen |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **snare** *not said to happen* | to-infinitive |  | pike |  |  |  |  | vn pocket-9.10 «NP V NP.theme»: agent=Agent he=Theme |
| 3 | **live** | present · perfect | one |  |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 4 | **tell** *speech: assert* | to-infinitive | one *not said here* | pike's story |  |  |  |  | vn transfer\_mesg-37.1.1-1-1 «NP V NP.recipient»: agent=Agent story=Recipient |

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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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