---
title: “No sailor ever saw a white cloud in the northwest sitting low upon… — The Sampo: A Wonder Tale of the Old North · tree and pragmatics
description: “No sailor ever saw a white cloud in the northwest sitting low upon the water. Who acts: sailor, northwest. 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 40

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“No sailor ever saw a white cloud in the northwest sitting low upon the water.

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**Who acts:** sailor, northwest · **What happens:** see, sit · **To what, where:** white cloud, northwest, water

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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 (sailor, northwest), 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:pg66819:37:40
# text = “No sailor ever saw a white cloud in the northwest sitting low upon the water.
1	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	5	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	No	no	DET	DT	PronType=Neg	3	det	_	_
3	sailor	sailor	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	nsubj	_	_
4	ever	ever	ADV	RB	PronType=Ind	5	advmod	_	_
5	saw	see	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
6	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	8	det	_	_
7	white	white	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	8	amod	_	_
8	cloud	cloud	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	obj	_	_
9	in	in	ADP	IN	_	11	case	_	_
10	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	11	det	_	_
11	northwest	northwest	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	8	nmod	_	_
12	sitting	sit	VERB	VBG	VerbForm=Ger	11	acl	_	_
13	low	low	ADV	RB	Degree=Pos	12	advmod	_	_
14	upon	upon	ADP	IN	_	16	case	_	_
15	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	16	det	_	_
16	water	water	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	12	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	5	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* | past | no sailor | a white cloud |  | the northwest | ever |  | vn comprehend-87.2-1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Experiencer cloud=Stimulus |
| 2 | **sit** *in a quote* | gerund | the northwest *not said here* |  |  | the water |  | low *property* | vn assuming\_position-50 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Agent upon water=Location |

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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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