---
title: The rowers sat down in their places and each seized his long oar. — The Sampo: A Wonder Tale of the Old North · tree and pragmatics
description: The rowers sat down in their places and each seized his long oar. Who acts: rowers, each. 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 15

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The rowers sat down in their places and each seized his long oar.

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**Who acts:** rowers, each · **What happens:** sit down, seize · **To what, where:** places, long oar

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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 (rowers, each), 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:pg66819:37:15
# text = The rowers sat down in their places and each seized his long oar.
1	The	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	2	det	_	_
2	rowers	rower	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	3	nsubj	_	_
3	sat	sit	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
4	down	down	ADP	RP	_	3	compound:prt	_	_
5	in	in	ADP	IN	_	7	case	_	_
6	their	their	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Plur|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	7	nmod:poss	_	_
7	places	place	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	3	obl	_	_
8	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	10	cc	_	_
9	each	each	DET	DT	PronType=Tot	10	nsubj	_	_
10	seized	seize	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	3	conj	_	_
11	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	13	nmod:poss	_	_
12	long	long	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	13	amod	_	_
13	oar	oar	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	10	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **sit down** | past | the rowers |  |  | robbers's places |  |  | vn assuming\_position-50 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Agent in place=Location |
| 2 | **seize** | past | each | Pohyola's long oar |  |  |  |  | vn obtain-13.5.2 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent oar=Theme |

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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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