---
title: The oars bent and groaned, the rowlocks creaked, the seats shook and… — The Sampo: A Wonder Tale of the Old North · tree and pragmatics
description: The oars bent and groaned, the rowlocks creaked, the seats shook and trembled. Who acts: rowlocks, seats. A sentence of «The Sampo: A Wonder Tale of the Old North» by James Baldwin, The Weeping Ship, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Sampo: A Wonder Tale of the Old North, The Weeping Ship, sentence 103

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The oars bent and groaned, the rowlocks creaked, the seats shook and trembled.

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**Who acts:** rowlocks, seats · **What happens:** bend, groan, creak, shake, tremble · **To what, where:** oars

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This is a sentence of «The Sampo: A Wonder Tale of the Old North» by James Baldwin, The Weeping Ship. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (rowlocks, seats), 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:pg66819:33:103
# text = The oars bent and groaned, the rowlocks creaked, the seats shook and trembled.
1	The	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	2	det	_	_
2	oars	oar	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	3	nsubj:pass	_	_
3	bent	bend	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	0	root	_	_
4	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	5	cc	_	_
5	groaned	groan	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	3	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	9	punct	_	_
7	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	8	det	_	_
8	rowlocks	rowlock	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	9	nsubj	_	_
9	creaked	creak	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	3	parataxis	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	13	punct	_	_
11	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	12	det	_	_
12	seats	seat	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	13	nsubj	_	_
13	shook	shake	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	9	conj	_	_
14	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	15	cc	_	_
15	trembled	tremble	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	13	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **bend** | participle · passive |  | the oars |  |  |  |  | vn knead-26.5 «NP V NP.material»: subject=Material |
| 2 | **groan** | participle |  |  |  |  |  |  | vn animal\_sounds-38 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 3 | **creak** | past | the rowlocks |  |  |  |  |  | vn sound\_emission-43.2 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 4 | **shake** | past | the seats |  |  |  |  |  | vn shake-22.3-2 «NP V ADV-Middle»: agent=Patient |
| 5 | **tremble** | past | the seats *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn modes\_of\_being\_with\_motion-47.3 «NP V»: agent=Theme |

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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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