---
title: It broke the fairy boat in pieces, undoing the work of many days. — The Sampo: A Wonder Tale of the Old North · tree and pragmatics
description: It broke the fairy boat in pieces, undoing the work of many days. Who acts: grasp, many days. 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 84

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It broke the fairy boat in pieces, undoing the work of many days.

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**Who acts:** grasp, many days · **What happens:** break, undo, work · **To what, where:** fairy boat, pieces, work

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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 (grasp, many days), 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:pg66819:3:84
# text = It broke the fairy boat in pieces, undoing the work of many days.
1	It	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	2	nsubj	_	_
2	broke	break	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	5	det	_	_
4	fairy	fairy	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	5	amod	_	_
5	boat	boat	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	2	obj	_	_
6	in	in	ADP	IN	_	7	case	_	_
7	pieces	piece	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	2	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	9	punct	_	_
9	undoing	undo	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	2	advcl	_	_
10	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	11	det	_	_
11	work	work	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	9	obj	_	_
12	of	of	ADP	IN	_	14	case	_	_
13	many	many	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	14	amod	_	_
14	days	day	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	11	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **break** | past | grasp | the fairy boat |  | pieces |  |  | vn hurt-40.8.3-1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Experiencer boat=Patient |
| 2 | **undo** | gerund | grasp *not said here* | the work of many days |  |  |  |  | vn destroy-44 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent work=Patient |
| 3 | **work** |  | many days |  |  |  |  |  | nom work «act 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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