---
title: Her long, crooked fingers trembled nervously, they seemed to be gras… — The Sampo: A Wonder Tale of the Old North · tree and pragmatics
description: Her long, crooked fingers trembled nervously, they seemed to be grasping at something invisible. Who acts: long crooked fingers, fingers. 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 5

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Her long, crooked fingers trembled nervously, they seemed to be grasping at something invisible.

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**Who acts:** long crooked fingers, fingers · **What happens:** tremble, seem, grasp · **To what, where:** something

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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 (long crooked fingers, fingers), 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:pg66819:35:5
# text = Her long, crooked fingers trembled nervously, they seemed to be grasping at something invisible.
1	Her	her	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	5	nmod:poss	_	_
2	long	long	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	5	amod	_	SpaceAfter=No
3	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	2	punct	_	_
4	crooked	crooked	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	5	amod	_	_
5	fingers	finger	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	6	nsubj	_	_
6	trembled	tremble	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
7	nervously	nervously	ADV	RB	_	6	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	10	punct	_	_
9	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	10	nsubj	_	_
10	seemed	seem	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	6	parataxis	_	_
11	to	to	PART	TO	_	13	mark	_	_
12	be	be	AUX	VB	VerbForm=Inf	13	aux	_	_
13	grasping	grasp	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	10	xcomp	_	_
14	at	at	ADP	IN	_	15	case	_	_
15	something	something	PRON	NN	Number=Sing|PronType=Ind	13	obl	_	_
16	invisible	invisible	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	15	amod	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	6	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **tremble** | past | Dame's long crooked fingers |  |  |  |  | nervously *property* | vn modes\_of\_being\_with\_motion-47.3 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 2 | **seem** | past | fingers *= finger* |  |  |  |  |  | vn seem-109-1-1-1 «NP V S\_INF»: agent=Theme clause=Attribute |
| 3 | **grasp** | to-infinitive · progressive | fingers *= finger* *not said here* |  |  | something |  |  | vn comprehend-87.2-1 «NP V S\_ING»: agent=Experiencer |

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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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