---
title: He ran to the woody thicket and broke off a long branch of hemlock t… — The Sampo: A Wonder Tale of the Old North · tree and pragmatics
description: He ran to the woody thicket and broke off a long branch of hemlock to serve him as a whip. Who acts: savagery. A sentence of «The Sampo: A Wonder Tale of the Old North» by James Baldwin, The Slave Boy, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Sampo: A Wonder Tale of the Old North, The Slave Boy, sentence 126

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He ran to the woody thicket and broke off a long branch of hemlock to serve him as a whip.

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**Who acts:** savagery · **What happens:** run, break off, serve · **To what, where:** long branch, savagery

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This is a sentence of «The Sampo: A Wonder Tale of the Old North» by James Baldwin, The Slave Boy. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (savagery), 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:pg66819:29:126
# text = He ran to the woody thicket and broke off a long branch of hemlock to serve him as a whip.
1	He	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	2	nsubj	_	_
2	ran	run	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	to	to	ADP	IN	_	6	case	_	_
4	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	6	det	_	_
5	woody	woody	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	6	amod	_	_
6	thicket	thicket	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	2	obl	_	_
7	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	8	cc	_	_
8	broke	break	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	2	conj	_	_
9	off	off	ADP	RP	_	8	compound:prt	_	_
10	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	12	det	_	_
11	long	long	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	12	amod	_	_
12	branch	branch	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	8	obj	_	_
13	of	of	ADP	IN	_	14	case	_	_
14	hemlock	hemlock	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	12	nmod	_	_
15	to	to	PART	TO	_	16	mark	_	_
16	serve	serve	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	8	advcl	_	_
17	him	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	16	obj	_	_
18	as	as	ADP	IN	_	20	case	_	_
19	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	20	det	_	_
20	whip	whip	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	16	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
21	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **run** | past | savagery |  |  |  |  | to the woody thicket *result* | vn run-51.3.2-2-1 «NP V PP.result»: agent=Theme to thicket=Result |
| 2 | **break off** | past | savagery *not said here* | a long branch of hemlock |  |  |  |  | vn hurt-40.8.3-1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Experiencer branch=Patient |
| 3 | **serve** | to-infinitive | savagery *not said here* | savagery |  |  |  | as a whip | vn spend\_time-104 «NP V NP PP.attribute»: agent=Agent he=Duration as whip=Attribute |

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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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