---
title: They sprang forward by tens and by hundreds, every one eager and imp… — The Sampo: A Wonder Tale of the Old North · tree and pragmatics
description: They sprang forward by tens and by hundreds, every one eager and impatient to obey her commands. Who acts: robbers, Dame. A sentence of «The Sampo: A Wonder Tale of the Old North» by James Baldwin, The Pursuit, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Sampo: A Wonder Tale of the Old North, The Pursuit, sentence 12

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They sprang forward by tens and by hundreds, every one eager and impatient to obey her commands.

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**Who acts:** robbers, Dame · **What happens:** sprang, obey, command · **To what, where:** commands · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «The Sampo: A Wonder Tale of the Old North» by James Baldwin, The Pursuit. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (robbers, Dame), 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:pg66819:37:12
# text = They sprang forward by tens and by hundreds, every one eager and impatient to obey her commands.
1	They	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	2	nsubj	_	_
2	sprang	sprang	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	forward	forward	ADV	RB	_	2	advmod	_	_
4	by	by	ADP	IN	_	5	case	_	_
5	tens	ten	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	2	obl	_	_
6	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	8	cc	_	_
7	by	by	ADP	IN	_	8	case	_	_
8	hundreds	hundred	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	5	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	12	punct	_	_
10	every	every	DET	DT	PronType=Tot	12	det	_	_
11	one	one	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	12	compound	_	_
12	eager	eager	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	appos	_	_
13	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	14	cc	_	_
14	impatient	impatient	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	12	conj	_	_
15	to	to	PART	TO	_	16	mark	_	_
16	obey	obey	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	14	xcomp	_	_
17	her	her	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	18	nmod:poss	_	_
18	commands	command	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	16	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
19	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **sprang** | present | robbers *= robber* |  |  |  |  | by tens and hundreds; forward *property* | tree rules |
| 2 | **obey** | to-infinitive | robbers *= robber* *not said here* | Dame's commands |  |  |  |  | vn abide\_by-93.2 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent command=Theme |
| 3 | **command** |  | Dame |  |  |  |  |  | nom command «communication transitive»: poss=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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