---
title: He sang a wild, strange song of enchantment—a song he had learned fr… — The Sampo: A Wonder Tale of the Old North · tree and pragmatics
description: He sang a wild, strange song of enchantment—a song he had learned from a witch woman in the land of mists and shadows. Who acts: boy, enchantment. 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 139

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He sang a wild, strange song of enchantment—a song he had learned from a witch woman in the land of mists and shadows.

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**Who acts:** boy, enchantment · **What happens:** sing, learn · **To what, where:** wild strange song, song

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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 (boy, enchantment), 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:pg66819:29:139
# text = He sang a wild, strange song of enchantment—a song he had learned from a witch woman in the land of mists and shadows.
1	He	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	2	nsubj	_	_
2	sang	sing	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	7	det	_	_
4	wild	wild	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	7	amod	_	SpaceAfter=No
5	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	4	punct	_	_
6	strange	strange	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	7	amod	_	_
7	song	song	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	2	obj	_	_
8	of	of	ADP	IN	_	9	case	_	_
9	enchantment	enchantment	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	—	-	PUNCT	:	_	15	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	12	det	_	_
12	song	song	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	15	nsubj:pass	_	_
13	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	15	nsubj	_	_
14	had	have	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	15	aux	_	_
15	learned	learn	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	2	conj	_	_
16	from	from	ADP	IN	_	19	case	_	_
17	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	19	det	_	_
18	witch	witch	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	19	compound	_	_
19	woman	woman	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	15	obl	_	_
20	in	in	ADP	IN	_	22	case	_	_
21	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	22	det	_	_
22	land	land	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	19	nmod	_	_
23	of	of	ADP	IN	_	24	case	_	_
24	mists	mist	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	22	nmod	_	_
25	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	26	cc	_	_
26	shadows	shadow	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	24	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
27	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **sing** *speech: express* | past | boy | a wild strange song of enchantment |  |  |  |  | vn sound\_emission-43.2 «PP.location V NP»: agent=Location song=Theme |
| 2 | **learn** | past · perfect · passive |  | a song |  |  |  | from a witch woman in the land of mists and shadows; boy *nsubj* | vn learn-14-2-1 «NP V NP PP.source»: subject=Topic from woman=Source |
| 3 | **sing** |  | enchantment |  |  |  |  |  | nom song «communication intransitive»: of=agent |

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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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