---
title: Then the Minstrel seized the reins and cracked his long whip. — The Sampo: A Wonder Tale of the Old North · tree and pragmatics
description: Then the Minstrel seized the reins and cracked his long whip. Who acts: Minstrel. A sentence of «The Sampo: A Wonder Tale of the Old North» by James Baldwin, The Tree of Magic, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Sampo: A Wonder Tale of the Old North, The Tree of Magic, sentence 15

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Then the Minstrel seized the reins and cracked his long whip.

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**Who acts:** Minstrel · **What happens:** seize, crack · **To what, where:** reins, long whip

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This is a sentence of «The Sampo: A Wonder Tale of the Old North» by James Baldwin, The Tree of Magic. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Minstrel), 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:pg66819:6:15
# text = Then the Minstrel seized the reins and cracked his long whip.
1	Then	then	ADV	RB	PronType=Dem	4	advmod	_	_
2	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	3	det	_	_
3	Minstrel	Minstrel	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	4	nsubj	_	_
4	seized	seize	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
5	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	6	det	_	_
6	reins	rein	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	4	obj	_	_
7	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	8	cc	_	_
8	cracked	crack	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	4	conj	_	_
9	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	11	nmod:poss	_	_
10	long	long	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	11	amod	_	_
11	whip	whip	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	8	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **seize** | past | the Minstrel | the reins |  |  | then |  | vn obtain-13.5.2 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent rein=Theme |
| 2 | **crack** | past | the Minstrel *not said here* | Minstrel's long whip |  |  |  |  | vn sound\_emission-43.2 «PP.location V NP»: agent=Location whip=Theme |

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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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