---
title: “Never before have I seen such a storm as this,” he moaned. — The Sampo: A Wonder Tale of the Old North · tree and pragmatics
description: “Never before have I seen such a storm as this,” he moaned. Who acts: Dame, storm. A sentence of «The Sampo: A Wonder Tale of the Old North» by James Baldwin, The Flight, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Sampo: A Wonder Tale of the Old North, The Flight, sentence 132

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“Never before have I seen such a storm as this,” he moaned.

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**Who acts:** Dame, storm · **What happens:** see, moan · **To what, where:** storm

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This is a sentence of «The Sampo: A Wonder Tale of the Old North» by James Baldwin, The Flight. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Dame, storm), 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:pg66819:36:132
# text = “Never before have I seen such a storm as this,” he moaned.
1	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	6	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	Never	never	ADV	RB	PronType=Neg	3	advmod	_	_
3	before	before	ADV	RB	_	6	advmod	_	_
4	have	have	AUX	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	6	aux	_	_
5	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	6	nsubj	_	_
6	seen	see	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part	15	advcl	_	_
7	such	such	DET	PDT	PronType=Ind	9	det:predet	_	_
8	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	9	det	_	_
9	storm	storm	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	obj	_	_
10	as	as	ADP	IN	_	11	case	_	_
11	this	this	PRON	DT	Number=Sing|PronType=Dem	6	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	6	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	6	punct	_	_
14	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	15	nsubj	_	_
15	moaned	moan	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	15	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **see** *in a quote* | present · perfect | Dame | such storm |  |  | never | as this; before *property* | vn comprehend-87.2-1-1 «NP V NP PP.attribute»: agent=Experiencer storm=Stimulus as this=Attribute |
| 2 | **moan** | past | storm |  |  |  |  |  | vn animal\_sounds-38 «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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