---
title: He raised his fingers nimbly and moved them swiftly over the harp st… — The Sampo: A Wonder Tale of the Old North · tree and pragmatics
description: He raised his fingers nimbly and moved them swiftly over the harp strings. Who acts: arm. 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 65

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He raised his fingers nimbly and moved them swiftly over the harp strings.

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**Who acts:** arm · **What happens:** raise, move · **To what, where:** fingers, harp strings

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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 (arm), 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:pg66819:35:65
# text = He raised his fingers nimbly and moved them swiftly over the harp strings.
1	He	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	2	nsubj	_	_
2	raised	raise	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	4	nmod:poss	_	_
4	fingers	finger	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	2	obj	_	_
5	nimbly	nimbly	ADV	RB	_	2	advmod	_	_
6	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	7	cc	_	_
7	moved	move	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	2	conj	_	_
8	them	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	7	obj	_	_
9	swiftly	swiftly	ADV	RB	_	7	advmod	_	_
10	over	over	ADP	IN	_	13	case	_	_
11	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	13	det	_	_
12	harp	harp	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	13	compound	_	_
13	strings	string	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	7	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **raise** | past | arm | arm's fingers |  |  |  | nimbly *property* | vn put\_direction-9.4 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent finger=Theme |
| 2 | **move** | past | arm *not said here* | fingers *= finger* |  | the harp strings |  | swiftly *property* | vn roll-51.3.1 «NP V NP PP.trajectory»: agent=Agent they=Theme over 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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