---
title: The Minstrel, with steady hand and hopeful heart, sat at the stern,… — The Sampo: A Wonder Tale of the Old North · tree and pragmatics
description: The Minstrel, with steady hand and hopeful heart, sat at the stern, guiding the vessel straight through the pathless waters. Who acts: Minstrel. 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 25

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The Minstrel, with steady hand and hopeful heart, sat at the stern, guiding the vessel straight through the pathless waters.

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**Who acts:** Minstrel · **What happens:** sit, guide · **To what, where:** stern, vessel, pathless waters

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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 (Minstrel), 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:pg66819:37:25
# text = The Minstrel, with steady hand and hopeful heart, sat at the stern, guiding the vessel straight through the pathless waters.
1	The	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	2	det	_	_
2	Minstrel	Minstrel	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	11	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
3	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	6	punct	_	_
4	with	with	ADP	IN	_	6	case	_	_
5	steady	steady	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	6	amod	_	_
6	hand	hand	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	2	appos	_	_
7	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	9	cc	_	_
8	hopeful	hopeful	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	9	amod	_	_
9	heart	heart	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	2	punct	_	_
11	sat	sit	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
12	at	at	ADP	IN	_	14	case	_	_
13	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	14	det	_	_
14	stern	stern	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	11	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	16	punct	_	_
16	guiding	guide	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	11	advcl	_	_
17	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	18	det	_	_
18	vessel	vessel	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	16	obj	_	_
19	straight	straight	ADV	RB	_	23	advmod	_	_
20	through	through	ADP	IN	_	23	case	_	_
21	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	23	det	_	_
22	pathless	pathless	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	23	amod	_	_
23	waters	water	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	16	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
24	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	11	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **sit** | past | the Minstrel |  |  | the stern |  |  | vn assuming\_position-50 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Agent at stern=Location |
| 2 | **guide** | gerund | the Minstrel *not said here* | the vessel |  | the pathless waters |  |  | vn accompany-51.7 «NP V NP PP.destination»: agent=Agent vessel=Theme through water=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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