---
title: Then he chuckled to the reindeer, and the birchwood runners glided m… — The Sampo: A Wonder Tale of the Old North · tree and pragmatics
description: Then he chuckled to the reindeer, and the birchwood runners glided more smoothly over the causeway. Who acts: other, birchwood runners. 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 39

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
Then he chuckled to the reindeer, and the birchwood runners glided more smoothly over the causeway.

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**Who acts:** other, birchwood runners · **What happens:** chuckle, glide · **To what, where:** reindeer, causeway

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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 (other, birchwood runners), 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:pg66819:6:39
# text = Then he chuckled to the reindeer, and the birchwood runners glided more smoothly over the causeway.
1	Then	then	ADV	RB	PronType=Dem	3	advmod	_	_
2	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	3	nsubj	_	_
3	chuckled	chuckle	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
4	to	to	ADP	IN	_	6	case	_	_
5	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	6	det	_	_
6	reindeer	reindeer	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	12	punct	_	_
8	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	12	cc	_	_
9	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	11	det	_	_
10	birchwood	birchwood	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	11	compound	_	_
11	runners	runner	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	12	nsubj	_	_
12	glided	glide	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	3	conj	_	_
13	more	more	ADV	RBR	Degree=Cmp	14	advmod	_	_
14	smoothly	smoothly	ADV	RB	_	12	advmod	_	_
15	over	over	ADP	IN	_	17	case	_	_
16	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	17	det	_	_
17	causeway	causeway	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	12	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
18	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **chuckle** | past | other |  | the reindeer |  | then |  | vn manner\_speaking-37.3 «NP V PP.recipient»: agent=Agent to reindeer=Recipient |
| 2 | **glide** | past | the birchwood runners |  |  | the causeway |  | smoothly *property* | vn run-51.3.2-2 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Theme over causeway=Trajectory |

<!-- .note -->
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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