---
title: Suddenly I heard a thrush singing sweetly to his mate and nestlings. — The Sampo: A Wonder Tale of the Old North · tree and pragmatics
description: Suddenly I heard a thrush singing sweetly to his mate and nestlings. Who acts: I, thrush. A sentence of «The Sampo: A Wonder Tale of the Old North» by James Baldwin, The Maid of Beauty, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Sampo: A Wonder Tale of the Old North, The Maid of Beauty, sentence 39

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Suddenly I heard a thrush singing sweetly to his mate and nestlings.

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**Who acts:** I, thrush · **What happens:** hear, sing · **To what, where:** thrush, mate

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This is a sentence of «The Sampo: A Wonder Tale of the Old North» by James Baldwin, The Maid of Beauty. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (I, thrush), 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:pg66819:3:39
# text = Suddenly I heard a thrush singing sweetly to his mate and nestlings.
1	Suddenly	suddenly	ADV	RB	_	3	advmod	_	_
2	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	3	nsubj	_	_
3	heard	hear	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
4	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	5	det	_	_
5	thrush	thrush	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	obj	_	_
6	singing	sing	VERB	VBG	VerbForm=Ger	5	acl	_	_
7	sweetly	sweetly	ADV	RB	_	6	advmod	_	_
8	to	to	ADP	IN	_	10	case	_	_
9	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	10	nmod:poss	_	_
10	mate	mate	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	obl	_	_
11	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	12	cc	_	_
12	nestlings	nestling	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	10	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **hear** | past | I | a thrush |  |  |  | suddenly *property* | vn see-30.1-1-1 «NP V S»: agent=Experiencer thrush=Stimulus |
| 2 | **sing** *speech: express* | gerund | a thrush *not said here* |  | Beauty's mate and nestlings |  |  | sweetly *property* | vn manner\_speaking-37.3 «NP V PP.recipient»: agent=Agent to mate=Recipient |

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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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