---
title: Wistfully the little girls, the maidens, the older women, all held t… — The Sampo: A Wonder Tale of the Old North · tree and pragmatics
description: Wistfully the little girls, the maidens, the older women, all held the harp in their hands and with their tender fingers swept the harp strings. A sentence of «The Sampo: A Wonder Tale of the Old North» by James Baldwin, The Kantele, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Sampo: A Wonder Tale of the Old North, The Kantele, sentence 86

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Wistfully the little girls, the maidens, the older women, all held the harp in their hands and with their tender fingers swept the harp strings.

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**What happens:** hold, sweep · **To what, where:** little girls, hands, harp strings

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This is a sentence of «The Sampo: A Wonder Tale of the Old North» by James Baldwin, The Kantele. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: 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:pg66819:34:86
# text = Wistfully the little girls, the maidens, the older women, all held the harp in their hands and with their tender fingers swept the harp strings.
1	Wistfully	wistfully	ADV	RB	_	4	advmod	_	_
2	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	4	det	_	_
3	little	little	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	4	amod	_	_
4	girls	girl	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	14	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
5	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	7	punct	_	_
6	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	7	det	_	_
7	maidens	maiden	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	4	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	11	punct	_	_
9	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	11	det	_	_
10	older	old	ADJ	JJR	Degree=Cmp	11	amod	_	_
11	women	woman	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	4	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	4	punct	_	_
13	all	all	ADV	RB	_	14	advmod	_	_
14	held	hold	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
15	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	16	det	_	_
16	harp	harp	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	14	obj	_	_
17	in	in	ADP	IN	_	19	case	_	_
18	their	their	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Plur|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	19	nmod:poss	_	_
19	hands	hand	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	14	obl	_	_
20	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	25	cc	_	_
21	with	with	ADP	IN	_	24	case	_	_
22	their	their	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Plur|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	24	nmod:poss	_	_
23	tender	tender	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	24	compound	_	_
24	fingers	finger	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	25	obl	_	_
25	swept	sweep	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	14	conj	_	_
26	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	28	det	_	_
27	harp	harp	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	28	compound	_	_
28	strings	string	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	25	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
29	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	14	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **hold** | past |  | the little girls and the maidens and the older women |  | women's hands |  | the harp *obj*; all *property* | vn keep-15.2 «NP V NP PP.location»: agent=Agent harp=Theme in hand=Location |
| 2 | **sweep** | past |  | the harp strings |  |  |  | with women's tender fingers | vn run-51.3.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Theme string=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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