---
title: In Wainola the children were crying for food and the men and women w… — The Sampo: A Wonder Tale of the Old North · tree and pragmatics
description: In Wainola the children were crying for food and the men and women were sitting on their doorsteps, silent, with stony faces, hopeless, helpless, despairing. Who acts: children, men. A sentence of «The Sampo: A Wonder Tale of the Old North» by James Baldwin, The Famine, with its dependency tree and 
---

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# The Sampo: A Wonder Tale of the Old North, The Famine, sentence 6

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In Wainola the children were crying for food and the men and women were sitting on their doorsteps, silent, with stony faces, hopeless, helpless, despairing.

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**Who acts:** children, men · **What happens:** cry, sit, despair · **To what, where:** Wainola, doorsteps

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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 (children, men), 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:pg66819:32:6
# text = In Wainola the children were crying for food and the men and women were sitting on their doorsteps, silent, with stony faces, hopeless, helpless, despairing.
1	In	in	ADP	IN	_	2	case	_	_
2	Wainola	Wainola	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	6	obl	_	_
3	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	4	det	_	_
4	children	child	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	6	nsubj	_	_
5	were	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	6	aux	_	_
6	crying	cry	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	0	root	_	_
7	for	for	ADP	IN	_	8	case	_	_
8	food	food	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	obl	_	_
9	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	15	cc	_	_
10	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	11	det	_	_
11	men	man	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	15	nsubj	_	_
12	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	13	cc	_	_
13	women	woman	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	11	conj	_	_
14	were	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	15	aux	_	_
15	sitting	sit	VERB	VBG	VerbForm=Ger	6	conj	_	_
16	on	on	ADP	IN	_	18	case	_	_
17	their	their	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Plur|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	18	nmod:poss	_	_
18	doorsteps	doorstep	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	15	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
19	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	20	punct	_	_
20	silent	silent	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	18	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
21	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	24	punct	_	_
22	with	with	ADP	IN	_	24	case	_	_
23	stony	stony	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	24	amod	_	_
24	faces	face	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	18	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
25	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	26	punct	_	_
26	hopeless	hopeless	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	24	amod	_	SpaceAfter=No
27	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	28	punct	_	_
28	helpless	helpless	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	26	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
29	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	30	punct	_	_
30	despairing	despair	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	6	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
31	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	6	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **cry** *speech: express* | past · progressive | the children |  |  | Wainola |  | for food | vn sound\_emission-43.2 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Theme in wainola=Location |
| 2 | **sit** | past · progressive | the men and women |  |  | men's doorsteps and stony faces |  |  | vn assuming\_position-50 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Agent on doorstep=Location |
| 3 | **despair** | gerund | the children *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn marvel-31.3 «NP V»: 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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