---
title: A worthless fellow he was, ill-favored, ill-natured, selfish, and un… — The Sampo: A Wonder Tale of the Old North · tree and pragmatics
description: A worthless fellow he was, ill-favored, ill-natured, selfish, and unkind. 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 9

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A worthless fellow he was, ill-favored, ill-natured, selfish, and unkind.

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**What happens:** favor · **To what, where:** worthless fellow

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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: 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:pg66819:29:9
# text = A worthless fellow he was, ill-favored, ill-natured, selfish, and unkind.
1	A	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	3	det	_	_
2	worthless	worthless	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	3	amod	_	_
3	fellow	fellow	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	0	root	_	_
4	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	5	nsubj	_	_
5	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	3	acl:relcl	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	9	punct	_	_
7	ill	ill	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	9	compound	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	7	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	favored	favor	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	3	acl	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	13	punct	_	_
11	ill	ill	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	13	amod	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	11	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	natured	natured	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	9	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	15	punct	_	_
15	selfish	selfish	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	3	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	18	punct	_	_
17	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	18	cc	_	_
18	unkind	unkind	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	3	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
19	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **favor** | participle |  | a worthless fellow and selfish *not said here* |  |  |  |  | vn admire-31.2 «NP V that S»: agent=Experiencer |

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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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