---
title: The hilt was shaped like a prancing horse, the knob was the image of… — The Sampo: A Wonder Tale of the Old North · tree and pragmatics
description: The hilt was shaped like a prancing horse, the knob was the image of a mewing cat. Who acts: knob. 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.
---

<!-- md -->
[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg66819/33/22/)

<!-- crumbs -->
[home](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) / [corpora](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/) / [tales](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/) / [The Sampo: A Wonder Tale of the Old No…](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg66819/) / [The Weeping Ship](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg66819/33/) / 22

# The Sampo: A Wonder Tale of the Old North, The Weeping Ship, sentence 22

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
The hilt was shaped like a prancing horse, the knob was the image of a mewing cat.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** knob · **What happens:** shape, be, mew · **To what, where:** hilt, image

<!-- .vabout -->
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 (knob), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

<!-- .note-en -->
**Mova's own parse.** This tree may be wrong.

## The tree {#tree}

```conllu
# sent_id = book:pg66819:33:22
# text = The hilt was shaped like a prancing horse, the knob was the image of a mewing cat.
1	The	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	2	det	_	_
2	hilt	hilt	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	nsubj:pass	_	_
3	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	4	aux:pass	_	_
4	shaped	shape	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	0	root	_	_
5	like	like	ADP	IN	_	8	case	_	_
6	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	8	det	_	_
7	prancing	prancing	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	8	compound	_	_
8	horse	horse	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	14	punct	_	_
10	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	11	det	_	_
11	knob	knob	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	14	nsubj	_	_
12	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	14	cop	_	_
13	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	14	det	_	_
14	image	image	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	obl	_	_
15	of	of	ADP	IN	_	18	case	_	_
16	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	18	det	_	_
17	mewing	mew	VERB	VBG	VerbForm=Ger	18	amod	_	_
18	cat	cat	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	14	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
19	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **shape** | past · passive |  | the hilt |  |  |  | like a prancing horse | vn build-26.1-1 «NP.asset V NP»: subject=Product |
| 2 | **is a** | past | the knob | the image |  |  |  | of a mewing cat | tree rules |
| 3 | **mew** | gerund |  |  |  |  |  |  | vn animal\_sounds-38 «NP V»: agent=Agent |

<!-- .note -->
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.

<!-- div src -->

**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.

<!-- /div -->

<!-- pn -->
- ← previous: [sentence 21](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg66819/33/21/)
- next →: [sentence 23](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg66819/33/23/)
- ↑ back to [The Weeping Ship](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg66819/33/)