---
title: Fishes were scarce and shy and the fishermen were disheartened. — The Sampo: A Wonder Tale of the Old North · tree and pragmatics
description: Fishes were scarce and shy and the fishermen were disheartened. Who acts: Fishes. 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 4

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Fishes were scarce and shy and the fishermen were disheartened.

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**Who acts:** Fishes · **What happens:** be, dishearten · **To what, where:** fishermen

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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 (Fishes), 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:pg66819:31:4
# text = Fishes were scarce and shy and the fishermen were disheartened.
1	Fishes	fish	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	3	nsubj	_	_
2	were	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	3	cop	_	_
3	scarce	scarce	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	0	root	_	_
4	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	5	cc	_	_
5	shy	shy	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	3	conj	_	_
6	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	10	cc	_	_
7	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	8	det	_	_
8	fishermen	fisherman	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	10	nsubj:pass	_	_
9	were	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	10	aux:pass	_	_
10	disheartened	dishearten	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	3	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is** | past | Fishes |  |  |  |  | scarce *property* | tree rules |
| 2 | **be** |  | Fishes *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 3 | **dishearten** | past · passive |  | the fishermen |  |  |  |  | vn amuse-31.1 «NP V NP»: subject=Experiencer |

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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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