---
title: Even while she spoke there was a clatter in the roadway, a humming a… — The Sampo: A Wonder Tale of the Old North · tree and pragmatics
description: Even while she spoke there was a clatter in the roadway, a humming and a bustling and a tramping of many feet. Who acts: Hero, clatter. A sentence of «The Sampo: A Wonder Tale of the Old North» by James Baldwin, The Wedding Feast, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Sampo: A Wonder Tale of the Old North, The Wedding Feast, sentence 66

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Even while she spoke there was a clatter in the roadway, a humming and a bustling and a tramping of many feet.

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**Who acts:** Hero, clatter · **What happens:** speak, be · **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 Wedding Feast. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Hero, clatter), 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:pg66819:27:66
# text = Even while she spoke there was a clatter in the roadway, a humming and a bustling and a tramping of many feet.
1	Even	even	ADV	RB	_	4	advmod	_	_
2	while	while	SCONJ	IN	_	4	mark	_	_
3	she	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	4	nsubj	_	_
4	spoke	speak	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
5	there	there	PRON	EX	PronType=Dem	6	expl	_	_
6	was	be	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	4	ccomp	_	_
7	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	8	det	_	_
8	clatter	clatter	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	nsubj	_	_
9	in	in	ADP	IN	_	11	case	_	_
10	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	11	det	_	_
11	roadway	roadway	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	8	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	14	punct	_	_
13	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	14	det	_	_
14	humming	humming	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	11	conj	_	_
15	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	17	cc	_	_
16	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	17	det	_	_
17	bustling	bustling	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	11	conj	_	_
18	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	20	cc	_	_
19	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	20	det	_	_
20	tramping	tramping	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	11	conj	_	_
21	of	of	ADP	IN	_	23	case	_	_
22	many	many	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	23	amod	_	_
23	feet	foot	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	20	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
24	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **speak** *speech: other* | past | Hero |  |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **be** | past | a clatter in the roadway and a humming and a bustling and a tramping of many feet |  |  | there |  |  | vn exist-47.1 «NP V»: agent=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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