---
title: Soft-furred ermines, minks, otters, and seals laid themselves down i… — The Sampo: A Wonder Tale of the Old North · tree and pragmatics
description: Soft-furred ermines, minks, otters, and seals laid themselves down in the grass before him. Who acts: Soft furred ermines. 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 69

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Soft-furred ermines, minks, otters, and seals laid themselves down in the grass before him.

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**Who acts:** Soft furred ermines · **What happens:** fur, lay down · **To what, where:** seals, grass

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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 (Soft furred ermines), 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:pg66819:35:69
# text = Soft-furred ermines, minks, otters, and seals laid themselves down in the grass before him.
1	Soft	soft	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	4	amod	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	1	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
3	furred	fur	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	4	amod	_	_
4	ermines	ermine	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	12	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
5	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	6	punct	_	_
6	minks	mink	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	4	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	8	punct	_	_
8	otters	otter	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	4	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	12	punct	_	_
10	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	12	cc	_	_
11	seals	seal	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	12	nsubj	_	_
12	laid	lay	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
13	themselves	themselves	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs|Reflex=Yes	12	obj	_	_
14	down	down	ADP	RP	_	12	compound:prt	_	_
15	in	in	ADP	IN	_	17	case	_	_
16	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	17	det	_	_
17	grass	grass	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	12	obl	_	_
18	before	before	ADP	IN	_	19	case	_	_
19	him	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	12	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
20	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	12	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **fur** | participle |  |  |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **lay down** | past | Soft furred ermines and minks and otters | seals *= seal* |  | the grass | before squirrel |  | vn put\_spatial-9.2 «NP V NP PP.destination»: agent=Agent themselves=Theme in grass=Destination |

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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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