---
title: Then from out of the shadows an old man, feeble and tottering, came… — The Sampo: A Wonder Tale of the Old North · tree and pragmatics
description: Then from out of the shadows an old man, feeble and tottering, came to meet him. Who acts: old man. A sentence of «The Sampo: A Wonder Tale of the Old North» by James Baldwin, The Famine, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Sampo: A Wonder Tale of the Old North, The Famine, sentence 14

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Then from out of the shadows an old man, feeble and tottering, came to meet him.

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**Who acts:** old man · **What happens:** totter, come, meet · **To what, where:** shadows, home

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This is a sentence of «The Sampo: A Wonder Tale of the Old North» by James Baldwin, The Famine. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (old man), 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:pg66819:32:14
# text = Then from out of the shadows an old man, feeble and tottering, came to meet him.
1	Then	then	ADV	RB	PronType=Dem	15	advmod	_	_
2	from	from	ADP	IN	_	6	case	_	_
3	out	out	ADP	IN	_	6	case	_	_
4	of	of	ADP	IN	_	6	case	_	_
5	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	6	det	_	_
6	shadows	shadow	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	15	obl	_	_
7	an	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	9	det	_	_
8	old	old	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	9	amod	_	_
9	man	man	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	15	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	11	punct	_	_
11	feeble	feeble	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	9	amod	_	_
12	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	13	cc	_	_
13	tottering	totter	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	11	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	9	punct	_	_
15	came	come	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
16	to	to	PART	TO	_	17	mark	_	_
17	meet	meet	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	15	xcomp	_	_
18	him	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	17	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
19	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	15	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **totter** | gerund | a old man *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn body\_internal\_motion-49.1 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 2 | **come** | past | a old man |  |  | the shadows | then |  | tree rules |
| 3 | **meet** | to-infinitive | a old man *not said here* | home |  |  |  |  | vn meet-36.3-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent he=Co-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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