---
title: The swordsmen shouted, the spearsmen poised their weapons, they wait… — The Sampo: A Wonder Tale of the Old North · tree and pragmatics
description: The swordsmen shouted, the spearsmen poised their weapons, they waited only for Dame Louhi’s command. Who acts: swordsmen, spearsmen, Dame. A sentence of «The Sampo: A Wonder Tale of the Old North» by James Baldwin, The Fate of the Sampo, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

<!-- md -->
[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg66819/38/3/)

<!-- crumbs -->
[home](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) / [corpora](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/) / [tales](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/) / [The Sampo: A Wonder Tale of the Old No…](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg66819/) / [The Fate of the Sampo](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg66819/38/) / 3

# The Sampo: A Wonder Tale of the Old North, The Fate of the Sampo, sentence 3

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
The swordsmen shouted, the spearsmen poised their weapons, they waited only for Dame Louhi’s command.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** swordsmen, spearsmen, Dame · **What happens:** shout, poise, wait, command · **To what, where:** weapons · **Speech:** someone speaks here

<!-- .vabout -->
This is a sentence of «The Sampo: A Wonder Tale of the Old North» by James Baldwin, The Fate of the Sampo. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (swordsmen, spearsmen, Dame), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

<!-- .note-en -->
**Mova's own parse.** This tree may be wrong.

## The tree {#tree}

```conllu
# sent_id = book:pg66819:38:3
# text = The swordsmen shouted, the spearsmen poised their weapons, they waited only for Dame Louhi’s command.
1	The	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	2	det	_	_
2	swordsmen	swordsman	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	3	nsubj	_	_
3	shouted	shout	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
4	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	7	punct	_	_
5	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	6	det	_	_
6	spearsmen	spearsmen	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	7	nsubj	_	_
7	poised	poise	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	3	conj	_	_
8	their	their	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Plur|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	9	nmod:poss	_	_
9	weapons	weapon	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	7	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	12	punct	_	_
11	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	12	nsubj	_	_
12	waited	wait	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	3	conj	_	_
13	only	only	ADV	RB	_	18	advmod	_	_
14	for	for	ADP	IN	_	18	case	_	_
15	Dame	Dame	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	18	nmod:poss	_	_
16	Louhi	Louhi	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	15	flat	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	’s	's	PART	POS	_	15	case	_	_
18	command	command	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	12	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
19	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **shout** *speech: express* | past | the swordsmen |  |  |  |  |  | vn manner\_speaking-37.3 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 2 | **poise** | past | the spearsmen | spearsmen's weapons |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 3 | **wait** | past | swordsmen *= swordsman* |  |  |  |  | for Dame's command | vn exist-47.1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 4 | **command** |  | Dame |  |  |  |  |  | nom command «communication transitive»: poss=agent |

<!-- .note -->
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.

<!-- div src -->

**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.

<!-- /div -->

<!-- pn -->
- ← previous: [sentence 2](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg66819/38/2/)
- next →: [sentence 4](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg66819/38/4/)
- ↑ back to [The Fate of the Sampo](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg66819/38/)