---
title: Or was it some beast of the shore wandering along the desolate beach… — The Sampo: A Wonder Tale of the Old North · tree and pragmatics
description: Or was it some beast of the shore wandering along the desolate beach and howling from hunger and loneliness? Who acts: spray, shore. 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 112

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Or was it some beast of the shore wandering along the desolate beach and howling from hunger and loneliness?

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**Who acts:** spray, shore · **What happens:** be, wonder, desolate, howl · **To what, where:** beast, hunger

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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 (spray, shore), 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:pg66819:33:112
# text = Or was it some beast of the shore wandering along the desolate beach and howling from hunger and loneliness?
1	Or	or	CCONJ	CC	_	5	cc	_	_
2	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	5	cop	_	_
3	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	5	nsubj	_	_
4	some	some	DET	DT	PronType=Ind	5	det	_	_
5	beast	beast	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	0	root	_	_
6	of	of	ADP	IN	_	8	case	_	_
7	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	8	det	_	_
8	shore	shore	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	nmod	_	_
9	wandering	wonder	VERB	VBG	VerbForm=Ger	8	acl	_	_
10	along	along	ADP	IN	_	13	case	_	_
11	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	13	det	_	_
12	desolate	desolate	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	13	compound	_	_
13	beach	beach	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	9	obl	_	_
14	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	15	cc	_	_
15	howling	howl	VERB	VBG	VerbForm=Ger	9	conj	_	_
16	from	from	ADP	IN	_	17	case	_	_
17	hunger	hunger	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	15	obl	_	_
18	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	19	cc	_	_
19	loneliness	loneliness	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	17	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
20	?	?	PUNCT	.	_	5	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is a** | past | spray | some beast |  |  |  | of the shore | tree rules |
| 2 | **wonder** *speech: ask* | gerund | the shore *not said here* |  |  |  |  | along the desolate beach | vn care-88.1-1 «NP V»: agent=Experiencer |
| 3 | **desolate** | infinitive |  |  |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 4 | **howl** | gerund | the shore *not said here* |  |  | hunger and loneliness |  |  | vn animal\_sounds-38 «NP V»: agent=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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