---
title: Years upon years went by, and at length one day Iron set out to visi… — The Sampo: A Wonder Tale of the Old North · tree and pragmatics
description: Years upon years went by, and at length one day Iron set out to visit his brothers. Who acts: Years. 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 21

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Years upon years went by, and at length one day Iron set out to visit his brothers.

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**Who acts:** Years · **What happens:** go by, set out, visit · **To what, where:** length, brothers

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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 (Years), 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:pg66819:5:21
# text = Years upon years went by, and at length one day Iron set out to visit his brothers.
1	Years	year	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	4	nsubj	_	_
2	upon	upon	ADP	IN	_	3	case	_	_
3	years	year	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	1	nmod	_	_
4	went	go	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
5	by	by	ADP	IN	_	4	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	13	punct	_	_
7	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	13	cc	_	_
8	at	at	ADP	IN	_	9	case	_	_
9	length	length	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	13	obl	_	_
10	one	one	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	11	nummod	_	_
11	day	day	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	9	nmod:unmarked	_	_
12	Iron	Iron	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	11	appos	_	_
13	set	set	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	4	conj	_	_
14	out	out	ADP	RP	_	13	compound:prt	_	_
15	to	to	PART	TO	_	16	mark	_	_
16	visit	visit	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	13	xcomp	_	_
17	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	18	nmod:poss	_	_
18	brothers	brother	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	16	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
19	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **go by** | past | Years upon years |  |  |  |  |  | vn disappearance-48.2-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 2 | **set out** | past | Years upon years *not said here* |  |  | length  one day |  |  | vn begin-55.1 «NP V S\_INF»: agent=Agent clause=Eventuality |
| 3 | **visit** | to-infinitive | Years upon years *not said here* | Water's brothers |  |  |  |  | vn meet-36.3-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent brother=Co-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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