---
title: Older still was Water, terrible in strength but, when not aroused, a… — The Sampo: A Wonder Tale of the Old North · tree and pragmatics
description: Older still was Water, terrible in strength but, when not aroused, as gentle as a mother’s caress. Who acts: mother. A sentence of «The Sampo: A Wonder Tale of the Old North» by James Baldwin, The Wicked Hornet, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Sampo: A Wonder Tale of the Old North, The Wicked Hornet, sentence 20

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Older still was Water, terrible in strength but, when not aroused, as gentle as a mother’s caress.

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**Who acts:** mother · **What happens:** be, not arouse, caress · **To what, where:** Water

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This is a sentence of «The Sampo: A Wonder Tale of the Old North» by James Baldwin, The Wicked Hornet. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (mother), 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:pg66819:5:20
# text = Older still was Water, terrible in strength but, when not aroused, as gentle as a mother’s caress.
1	Older	old	ADJ	JJR	Degree=Cmp	0	root	_	_
2	still	still	ADV	RB	_	4	advmod	_	_
3	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	4	cop	_	_
4	Water	Water	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	1	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
5	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	6	punct	_	_
6	terrible	terrible	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	1	conj	_	_
7	in	in	ADP	IN	_	8	case	_	_
8	strength	strength	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	obl	_	_
9	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	13	cc	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	13	punct	_	_
11	when	when	ADV	WRB	PronType=Int	13	advmod	_	_
12	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	13	advmod	_	_
13	aroused	arouse	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	6	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	16	punct	_	_
15	as	as	ADP	IN	_	16	case	_	_
16	gentle	gentle	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	13	conj	_	_
17	as	as	ADP	IN	_	21	case	_	_
18	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	19	det	_	_
19	mother	mother	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	21	nmod:poss	_	SpaceAfter=No
20	’s	's	PART	POS	_	19	case	_	_
21	caress	caress	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	16	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
22	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	1	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is a** | past |  | Water |  |  | still |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **not** **arouse** | participle |  |  |  |  |  |  | vn amuse-31.1 «NP V ADV-Middle»: agent=Experiencer |
| 4 | **caress** |  | a mother |  |  |  |  |  | nom caress «act transitive»: poss=agent |

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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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