---
title: The reindeer slackened its speed; it seemed ready to sink in its tra… — The Sampo: A Wonder Tale of the Old North · tree and pragmatics
description: The reindeer slackened its speed; it seemed ready to sink in its tracks. Who acts: reindeer, it. 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 32

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The reindeer slackened its speed; it seemed ready to sink in its tracks.

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**Who acts:** reindeer, it · **What happens:** slacken, seem, sink · **To what, where:** speed, tracks

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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 (reindeer, it), 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:pg66819:6:32
# text = The reindeer slackened its speed; it seemed ready to sink in its tracks.
1	The	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	2	det	_	_
2	reindeer	reindeer	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	nsubj	_	_
3	slackened	slacken	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
4	its	its	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	5	nmod:poss	_	_
5	speed	speed	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	;	;	PUNCT	:	_	8	punct	_	_
7	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	8	nsubj	_	_
8	seemed	seem	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	3	parataxis	_	_
9	ready	ready	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	8	xcomp	_	_
10	to	to	PART	TO	_	11	mark	_	_
11	sink	sink	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	9	xcomp	_	_
12	in	in	ADP	IN	_	14	case	_	_
13	its	its	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	14	nmod:poss	_	_
14	tracks	track	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	11	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **slacken** | past | the reindeer | reindeer's speed |  |  |  |  | vn bend-45.2 «NP V NP.patient»: agent=Agent speed=Patient |
| 2 | **seem** | past | it |  |  |  |  | ready *property* | vn seem-109-1-1-1 «NP V S\_INF»: agent=Theme |
| 3 | **sink** | to-infinitive |  |  |  | reindeer's tracks |  |  | vn other\_cos-45.4 «NP.patient V»: agent=Patient |

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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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