---
title: The slave looked at it, and as the blade fell to the ground he burst… — The Sampo: A Wonder Tale of the Old North · tree and pragmatics
description: The slave looked at it, and as the blade fell to the ground he burst out weeping. Who acts: slave, blade. 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 98

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The slave looked at it, and as the blade fell to the ground he burst out weeping.

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**Who acts:** slave, blade · **What happens:** look, fall, burst out, weep

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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 (slave, blade), 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:pg66819:29:98
# text = The slave looked at it, and as the blade fell to the ground he burst out weeping.
1	The	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	2	det	_	_
2	slave	slave	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	nsubj	_	_
3	looked	look	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
4	at	at	ADP	IN	_	5	case	_	_
5	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	3	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	16	punct	_	_
7	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	16	cc	_	_
8	as	as	SCONJ	IN	_	11	mark	_	_
9	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	10	det	_	_
10	blade	blade	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	11	nsubj	_	_
11	fell	fall	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	16	advcl	_	_
12	to	to	ADP	IN	_	14	case	_	_
13	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	14	det	_	_
14	ground	ground	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	11	obl	_	_
15	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	16	nsubj	_	_
16	burst	burst	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	3	conj	_	_
17	out	out	ADP	RP	_	16	compound:prt	_	_
18	weeping	weep	VERB	VBG	VerbForm=Ger	16	xcomp	_	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 | **look** | past | the slave |  |  |  |  | at knife | vn peer-30.3 «NP V PP.theme»: agent=Agent at it=Theme |
| 2 | **fall** | past | the blade |  |  |  |  | to the ground | vn acquiesce-95.1-1 «NP V PP.theme»: agent=Agent to ground=Theme |
| 3 | **burst out** | past | blade |  |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 4 | **weep** | gerund | blade *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn breathe-40.1.2 «NP V»: agent=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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