---
title: A child might have liked it as a plaything, but a hero delights not… — The Sampo: A Wonder Tale of the Old North · tree and pragmatics
description: A child might have liked it as a plaything, but a hero delights not in useless toys. Who acts: hero. 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 86

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A child might have liked it as a plaything, but a hero delights not in useless toys.

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**Who acts:** hero · **What happens:** like, not delight · **To what, where:** child, useless toys

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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 (hero), 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:pg66819:31:86
# text = A child might have liked it as a plaything, but a hero delights not in useless toys.
1	A	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	2	det	_	_
2	child	child	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	nsubj:pass	_	_
3	might	might	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	5	aux	_	_
4	have	have	AUX	VB	VerbForm=Inf	5	aux	_	_
5	liked	like	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	0	root	_	_
6	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	5	obj	_	_
7	as	as	ADP	IN	_	9	case	_	_
8	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	9	det	_	_
9	plaything	plaything	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	14	punct	_	_
11	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	14	cc	_	_
12	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	13	det	_	_
13	hero	hero	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	14	nsubj	_	_
14	delights	delight	VERB	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	5	conj	_	_
15	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	14	advmod	_	_
16	in	in	ADP	IN	_	18	case	_	_
17	useless	useless	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	18	amod	_	_
18	toys	toy	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	14	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
19	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	5	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **like** | might · perfect · passive |  | a child |  |  |  | as a plaything; pleasure *obj* | tree rules |
| 2 | **not** **delight** | present | a hero |  |  | useless toys |  |  | vn amuse-31.1 «NP V ADV-Middle»: agent=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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