---
title: Can you snare a bird’s egg with a thread too small to be seen?” — The Sampo: A Wonder Tale of the Old North · tree and pragmatics
description: Can you snare a bird’s egg with a thread too small to be seen?” Who acts: you. 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.
---

<!-- md -->
[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg66819/3/53/)

<!-- crumbs -->
[home](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) / [corpora](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/) / [tales](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/) / [The Sampo: A Wonder Tale of the Old No…](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg66819/) / [The Maid of Beauty](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg66819/3/) / 53

# The Sampo: A Wonder Tale of the Old North, The Maid of Beauty, sentence 53

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
Can you snare a bird’s egg with a thread too small to be seen?”

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** you · **What happens:** snare, see · **To what, where:** egg

<!-- .vabout -->
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 (you), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

<!-- .note-en -->
**Mova's own parse.** This tree may be wrong.

## The tree {#tree}

```conllu
# sent_id = book:pg66819:3:53
# text = Can you snare a bird’s egg with a thread too small to be seen?”
1	Can	can	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	3	aux	_	_
2	you	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Person=2|PronType=Prs	3	nsubj	_	_
3	snare	snare	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	0	root	_	_
4	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	5	det	_	_
5	bird	bird	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	nmod:poss	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	’s	's	PART	POS	_	5	case	_	_
7	egg	egg	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	obj	_	_
8	with	with	ADP	IN	_	10	case	_	_
9	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	10	det	_	_
10	thread	thread	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	obl	_	_
11	too	too	ADV	RB	_	12	advmod	_	_
12	small	small	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	10	amod	_	_
13	to	to	PART	TO	_	15	mark	_	_
14	be	be	AUX	VB	VerbForm=Inf	15	aux:pass	_	_
15	seen	see	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	12	advcl	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	?	?	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **snare** | can | you | a bird's egg |  |  |  | with a thread | vn pocket-9.10 «NP V NP.theme»: agent=Agent egg=Theme |
| 2 | **see** | to-infinitive · passive | you *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn comprehend-87.2-1-1 «NP V» |

<!-- .note -->
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.

<!-- div src -->

**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.

<!-- /div -->

<!-- pn -->
- ← previous: [sentence 52](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg66819/3/52/)
- next →: [sentence 54](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg66819/3/54/)
- ↑ back to [The Maid of Beauty](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg66819/3/)