---
title: They climbed quickly on board of it, singing as it floated slowly fr… — The Sampo: A Wonder Tale of the Old North · tree and pragmatics
description: They climbed quickly on board of it, singing as it floated slowly from the shore: Who acts: heroes, vessel. 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 70

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They climbed quickly on board of it, singing as it floated slowly from the shore:

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**Who acts:** heroes, vessel · **What happens:** climb, sing, float · **To what, where:** board, shore · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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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 (heroes, vessel), 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:pg66819:33:70
# text = They climbed quickly on board of it, singing as it floated slowly from the shore:
1	They	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	2	nsubj	_	_
2	climbed	climb	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	quickly	quickly	ADV	RB	_	2	advmod	_	_
4	on	on	ADP	IN	_	5	case	_	_
5	board	board	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	2	obl	_	_
6	of	of	ADP	IN	_	7	case	_	_
7	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	5	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	9	punct	_	_
9	singing	sing	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	2	advcl	_	_
10	as	as	SCONJ	IN	_	12	mark	_	_
11	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	12	nsubj	_	_
12	floated	float	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	9	ccomp	_	_
13	slowly	slowly	ADV	RB	_	12	advmod	_	_
14	from	from	ADP	IN	_	16	case	_	_
15	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	16	det	_	_
16	shore	shore	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	12	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	:	:	PUNCT	:	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **climb** | past | heroes *= hero* |  |  | board of vessel |  | quickly *property* | vn run-51.3.2 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Theme on board=Trajectory |
| 2 | **sing** *speech: express* | gerund | heroes *= hero* *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn manner\_speaking-37.3 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent clause=Topic |
| 3 | **float** | past | vessel |  |  | the shore |  | slowly *property* | vn run-51.3.2-2 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Theme from shore=Trajectory |

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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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