---
title: He was mending his net and weeping because the fishes were so few. — The Sampo: A Wonder Tale of the Old North · tree and pragmatics
description: He was mending his net and weeping because the fishes were so few. Who acts: fisherman, fishes. 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 108

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He was mending his net and weeping because the fishes were so few.

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**Who acts:** fisherman, fishes · **What happens:** mend, be · **To what, where:** net

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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 (fisherman, fishes), 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:pg66819:33:108
# text = He was mending his net and weeping because the fishes were so few.
1	He	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	3	nsubj	_	_
2	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	3	aux	_	_
3	mending	mend	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	0	root	_	_
4	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	5	nmod:poss	_	_
5	net	net	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	obj	_	_
6	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	7	cc	_	_
7	weeping	weeping	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	conj	_	_
8	because	because	SCONJ	IN	_	13	mark	_	_
9	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	10	det	_	_
10	fishes	fish	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	13	nsubj	_	_
11	were	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	13	cop	_	_
12	so	so	ADV	RB	_	13	advmod	_	_
13	few	few	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	3	advcl	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **mend** | past · progressive | fisherman | fisherman's net and weeping |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **is** | past | the fishes |  |  |  |  | few *property* | tree rules |

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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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