---
title: He held the kantele in his hands and began to play upon it, softly,… — The Sampo: A Wonder Tale of the Old North · tree and pragmatics
description: He held the kantele in his hands and began to play upon it, softly, gently. Who acts: Wainamoinen. 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 63

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He held the kantele in his hands and began to play upon it, softly, gently.

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**Who acts:** Wainamoinen · **What happens:** hold, begin, play · **To what, where:** kantele, hands

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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 (Wainamoinen), 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:pg66819:35:63
# text = He held the kantele in his hands and began to play upon it, softly, gently.
1	He	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	2	nsubj	_	_
2	held	hold	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	kantele	kantele	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	2	obj	_	_
5	in	in	ADP	IN	_	7	case	_	_
6	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	7	nmod:poss	_	_
7	hands	hand	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	4	nmod	_	_
8	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	9	cc	_	_
9	began	begin	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	2	conj	_	_
10	to	to	PART	TO	_	11	mark	_	_
11	play	play	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	9	xcomp	_	_
12	upon	upon	ADP	IN	_	13	case	_	_
13	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	11	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	15	punct	_	_
15	softly	softly	ADV	RB	_	11	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	17	punct	_	_
17	gently	gently	ADV	RB	_	11	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
18	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **hold** | past | Wainamoinen | the kantele |  | Wainamoinen's hands |  |  | vn keep-15.2 «NP V NP PP.location»: agent=Agent kantele=Theme in hand=Location |
| 2 | **begin** | past | Wainamoinen *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn begin-55.1-1-1 «NP V S\_INF»: agent=Agent clause=Eventuality |
| 3 | **play** | to-infinitive | Wainamoinen *not said here* |  |  |  |  | upon kantele; gently, softly *property* | vn performance-26.7-1 «NP V»: agent=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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