---
title: He took the oar in his labor-hardened hands, he dipped its blade in… — The Sampo: A Wonder Tale of the Old North · tree and pragmatics
description: He took the oar in his labor-hardened hands, he dipped its blade in the singing water and began rowing. Who acts: Ilmarinen. 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/pg66819/33/98/)

<!-- 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/) / 98

# The Sampo: A Wonder Tale of the Old North, The Weeping Ship, sentence 98

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
He took the oar in his labor-hardened hands, he dipped its blade in the singing water and began rowing.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** Ilmarinen · **What happens:** take, harden, dip, sing, begin, row · **To what, where:** oar, hardened hands, blade, singing water

<!-- .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 (Ilmarinen), 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:pg66819:33:98
# text = He took the oar in his labor-hardened hands, he dipped its blade in the singing water and began rowing.
1	He	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	2	nsubj	_	_
2	took	take	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	4	det	_	_
4	oar	oar	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	2	obj	_	_
5	in	in	ADP	IN	_	10	case	_	_
6	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	10	nmod:poss	_	_
7	labor	labor	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	9	compound	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	7	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	hardened	harden	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	10	amod	_	_
10	hands	hand	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	2	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	13	punct	_	_
12	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	13	nsubj	_	_
13	dipped	dip	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	2	parataxis	_	_
14	its	its	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	15	nmod:poss	_	_
15	blade	blade	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	13	obj	_	_
16	in	in	ADP	IN	_	19	case	_	_
17	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	19	det	_	_
18	singing	sing	VERB	VBG	VerbForm=Ger	19	amod	_	_
19	water	water	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	13	obl	_	_
20	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	21	cc	_	_
21	began	begin	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	13	conj	_	_
22	rowing	row	VERB	VBG	VerbForm=Ger	21	xcomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
23	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **take** | past | Ilmarinen | the oar |  | Ilmarinen's hardened hands |  |  | vn fit-54.3 «NP V NP PP.location»: agent=Agent oar=Value in hand=Location |
| 2 | **harden** | participle |  |  |  |  |  | labor *compound* | vn other\_cos-45.4 «NP.patient V»: agent=Patient |
| 3 | **dip** | past | Ilmarinen | prow's blade |  | the singing water |  |  | vn funnel-9.3 «NP V NP PP.trajectory»: agent=Agent blade=Theme in water=Trajectory |
| 4 | **sing** *speech: express* | gerund |  |  |  |  |  |  | vn sound\_emission-43.2 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 5 | **begin** | past | Ilmarinen *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn begin-55.1-1-1 «NP V S\_ING»: agent=Agent clause=Eventuality |
| 6 | **row** | gerund | Ilmarinen *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn nonvehicle-51.4.2 «NP.agent 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 97](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg66819/33/97/)
- next →: [sentence 99](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg66819/33/99/)
- ↑ back to [The Weeping Ship](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg66819/33/)