---
title: They stood ready to smite and to slay, to drive the intruders into t… — The Sampo: A Wonder Tale of the Old North · tree and pragmatics
description: They stood ready to smite and to slay, to drive the intruders into the sea. Who acts: spearsmen. 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 61

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They stood ready to smite and to slay, to drive the intruders into the sea.

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**Who acts:** spearsmen · **What happens:** stand, smite, slay, drive · **To what, where:** intruders, sea

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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 (spearsmen), 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:pg66819:35:61
# text = They stood ready to smite and to slay, to drive the intruders into the sea.
1	They	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	2	nsubj	_	_
2	stood	stand	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	ready	ready	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	2	xcomp	_	_
4	to	to	PART	TO	_	5	mark	_	_
5	smite	smite	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	3	xcomp	_	_
6	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	8	cc	_	_
7	to	to	PART	TO	_	8	mark	_	_
8	slay	slay	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	5	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	11	punct	_	_
10	to	to	PART	TO	_	11	mark	_	_
11	drive	drive	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	8	conj	_	_
12	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	13	det	_	_
13	intruders	intruder	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	11	obj	_	_
14	into	into	ADP	IN	_	16	case	_	_
15	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	16	det	_	_
16	sea	sea	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	11	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 | **stand** | past | spearsmen |  |  |  |  | ready *property* | vn assuming\_position-50 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 2 | **smite** | to-infinitive | spearsmen *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn amuse-31.1 «NP V ADV-Middle»: agent=Experiencer |
| 3 | **slay** | to-infinitive | spearsmen *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn murder-42.1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent |
| 4 | **drive** | to-infinitive | spearsmen *not said here* | the intruders |  | the sea |  |  | vn nonvehicle-51.4.2-1 «NP V NP PP.location»: agent=Agent intruder=Theme into sea=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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