---
title: “If they were wiser they would spread sail and hasten back to Wainol… — The Sampo: A Wonder Tale of the Old North · tree and pragmatics
description: “If they were wiser they would spread sail and hasten back to Wainola,” croaked a third. Who acts: Caw, wiser. A sentence of «The Sampo: A Wonder Tale of the Old North» by James Baldwin, The Golden Maiden, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Sampo: A Wonder Tale of the Old North, The Golden Maiden, sentence 27

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“If they were wiser they would spread sail and hasten back to Wainola,” croaked a third.

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**Who acts:** Caw, wiser · **What happens:** be, spread, hasten, croak · **To what, where:** sail, third

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This is a sentence of «The Sampo: A Wonder Tale of the Old North» by James Baldwin, The Golden Maiden. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Caw, wiser), 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:pg66819:31:27
# text = “If they were wiser they would spread sail and hasten back to Wainola,” croaked a third.
1	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	5	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	If	if	SCONJ	IN	_	5	mark	_	_
3	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	5	nsubj	_	_
4	were	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	5	cop	_	_
5	wiser	wise	ADJ	JJR	Degree=Cmp	17	nsubj	_	_
6	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	8	nsubj	_	_
7	would	would	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	8	aux	_	_
8	spread	spread	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	5	parataxis	_	_
9	sail	sail	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	8	obj	_	_
10	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	11	cc	_	_
11	hasten	hasten	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	8	conj	_	_
12	back	back	ADV	RB	_	11	advmod	_	_
13	to	to	ADP	IN	_	14	case	_	_
14	Wainola	Wainola	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	12	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	5	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	5	punct	_	_
17	croaked	croak	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
18	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	19	det	_	_
19	third	third	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	17	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
20	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	17	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is** *a condition, not said to happen, in a quote* | past | Caw |  |  |  |  | wise *property* | tree rules |
| 2 | **spread** *in a quote* | would | Caw | sail |  |  |  |  | vn appear-48.1.1 «PP.location V NP»: agent=Location sail=Theme |
| 3 | **hasten** *in a quote* | infinitive | Caw *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn other\_cos-45.4 «NP.patient V»: agent=Patient |
| 4 | **croak** | past | wiser | a third |  |  |  |  | vn animal\_sounds-38 «NP V NP.theme»: agent=Agent third=Theme |

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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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