---
title: Then, with the pot balanced carefully on his shoulder, he started ho… — The Sampo: A Wonder Tale of the Old North · tree and pragmatics
description: Then, with the pot balanced carefully on his shoulder, he started homeward. Who acts: pot. A sentence of «The Sampo: A Wonder Tale of the Old North» by James Baldwin, The Graybeard and His Son, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Sampo: A Wonder Tale of the Old North, The Graybeard and His Son, sentence 111

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Then, with the pot balanced carefully on his shoulder, he started homeward.

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**Who acts:** pot · **What happens:** balance, start · **To what, where:** shoulder, homeward

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This is a sentence of «The Sampo: A Wonder Tale of the Old North» by James Baldwin, The Graybeard and His Son. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (pot), 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:pg66819:4:111
# text = Then, with the pot balanced carefully on his shoulder, he started homeward.
1	Then	then	ADV	RB	PronType=Dem	6	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	1	punct	_	_
3	with	with	ADP	IN	_	5	case	_	_
4	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	5	det	_	_
5	pot	pot	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	obl	_	_
6	balanced	balance	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
7	carefully	carefully	ADV	RB	_	6	advmod	_	_
8	on	on	ADP	IN	_	10	case	_	_
9	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	10	nmod:poss	_	_
10	shoulder	shoulder	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	13	punct	_	_
12	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	13	nsubj	_	_
13	started	start	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	6	conj	_	_
14	homeward	homeward	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	13	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	6	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **balance** | past |  |  |  | pot's shoulder | then | with the pot; carefully *property* | vn spatial\_configuration-47.6-1 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Theme on shoulder=Location |
| 2 | **start** | past | pot | homeward |  |  |  |  | vn begin-55.1-1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent homeward=Eventuality |

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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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