---
title: Often in fitful dreams he reached his hand out in the darkness think… — The Sampo: A Wonder Tale of the Old North · tree and pragmatics
description: Often in fitful dreams he reached his hand out in the darkness thinking to touch hers, but grasping nothing, seizing only empty air. Who acts: Beauty, darkness. 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 
---

<!-- md -->
[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg66819/31/60/)

<!-- 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 Golden Maiden](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg66819/31/) / 60

# The Sampo: A Wonder Tale of the Old North, The Golden Maiden, sentence 60

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
Often in fitful dreams he reached his hand out in the darkness thinking to touch hers, but grasping nothing, seizing only empty air.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** Beauty, darkness · **What happens:** reach out, think, touch, grasp, seize · **To what, where:** hand, fitful dreams, friend, nothing, empty air

<!-- .vabout -->
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 (Beauty, darkness), 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:pg66819:31:60
# text = Often in fitful dreams he reached his hand out in the darkness thinking to touch hers, but grasping nothing, seizing only empty air.
1	Often	often	ADV	RB	_	6	advmod	_	_
2	in	in	ADP	IN	_	4	case	_	_
3	fitful	fitful	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	4	amod	_	_
4	dreams	dream	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	6	obl	_	_
5	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	6	nsubj	_	_
6	reached	reach	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
7	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	8	nmod:poss	_	_
8	hand	hand	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	obj	_	_
9	out	out	ADP	RP	_	6	compound:prt	_	_
10	in	in	ADP	IN	_	12	case	_	_
11	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	12	det	_	_
12	darkness	darkness	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	obl	_	_
13	thinking	think	VERB	VBG	VerbForm=Ger	12	acl	_	_
14	to	to	PART	TO	_	15	mark	_	_
15	touch	touch	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	13	xcomp	_	_
16	hers	her	PRON	PRP	Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	15	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	19	punct	_	_
18	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	19	cc	_	_
19	grasping	grasp	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	6	advcl	_	_
20	nothing	nothing	PRON	NN	Number=Sing|PronType=Neg	19	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
21	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	22	punct	_	_
22	seizing	seize	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	19	conj	_	_
23	only	only	ADV	RB	_	25	advmod	_	_
24	empty	empty	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	25	amod	_	_
25	air	air	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	22	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
26	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	6	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **reach out** | past | Beauty | Beauty's hand |  | fitful dreams |  | in the darkness; often *property* | vn body\_motion-49.2-1-1 «NP V NP ADV»: agent=Agent hand=Theme |
| 2 | **think** *speech: other* | gerund | the darkness *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn consider-29.9-2 «NP V how S\_INF»: agent=Agent clause=Theme |
| 3 | **touch** | to-infinitive | the darkness *not said here* | friend |  |  |  |  | vn contiguous\_location-47.8-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Theme her=Co-Theme |
| 4 | **grasp** | gerund | Beauty *not said here* | nothing |  |  |  |  | vn comprehend-87.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Experiencer nothing=Stimulus |
| 5 | **seize** | gerund | Beauty *not said here* | empty air |  |  |  |  | vn obtain-13.5.2 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent |

<!-- .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 59](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg66819/31/59/)
- next →: [sentence 61](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg66819/31/61/)
- ↑ back to [The Golden Maiden](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg66819/31/)