---
title: “Who are these people, and what do they mean by their strange action… — The Sampo: A Wonder Tale of the Old North · tree and pragmatics
description: “Who are these people, and what do they mean by their strange actions?” Who acts: people. A sentence of «The Sampo: A Wonder Tale of the Old North» by James Baldwin, The Triumph of Music, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Sampo: A Wonder Tale of the Old North, The Triumph of Music, sentence 29

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“Who are these people, and what do they mean by their strange actions?”

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**Who acts:** people · **What happens:** be, mean, act · **To what, where:** people

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This is a sentence of «The Sampo: A Wonder Tale of the Old North» by James Baldwin, The Triumph of Music. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (people), 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:pg66819:35:29
# text = “Who are these people, and what do they mean by their strange actions?”
1	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	5	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	Who	who	PRON	WP	PronType=Rel	5	nsubj	_	_
3	are	be	AUX	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	5	cop	_	_
4	these	this	DET	DT	Number=Plur|PronType=Dem	5	det	_	_
5	people	people	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	11	punct	_	_
7	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	11	cc	_	_
8	what	what	PRON	WP	PronType=Int	11	obj	_	_
9	do	do	AUX	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	11	aux	_	_
10	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	11	nsubj	_	_
11	mean	mean	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	5	parataxis	_	_
12	by	by	ADP	IN	_	15	case	_	_
13	their	their	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Plur|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	15	nmod:poss	_	_
14	strange	strange	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	15	amod	_	_
15	actions	action	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	11	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	?	?	PUNCT	.	_	5	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	”	"	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** *in a quote* | present |  | this people |  |  |  | Who *nsubj* | tree rules |
| 2 | **mean** *in a quote* | present · do-support | people | this people |  |  |  | by people's strange actions | vn intend-61.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent what=Topic |
| 3 | **act** *in a quote* |  | people |  |  |  |  |  | nom action «act intransitive»: poss=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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