---
title: The Smith was speechless; his tongue was motionless, and he could no… — The Sampo: A Wonder Tale of the Old North · tree and pragmatics
description: The Smith was speechless; his tongue was motionless, and he could not make reply. Who acts: Smith, tongue, Ilmarinen. A sentence of «The Sampo: A Wonder Tale of the Old North» by James Baldwin, The Homesick Hero, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Sampo: A Wonder Tale of the Old North, The Homesick Hero, sentence 45

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The Smith was speechless; his tongue was motionless, and he could not make reply.

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**Who acts:** Smith, tongue, Ilmarinen · **What happens:** be, not make · **To what, where:** reply

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This is a sentence of «The Sampo: A Wonder Tale of the Old North» by James Baldwin, The Homesick Hero. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Smith, tongue, Ilmarinen), 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:pg66819:12:45
# text = The Smith was speechless; his tongue was motionless, and he could not make reply.
1	The	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	2	det	_	_
2	Smith	Smith	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	4	nsubj	_	_
3	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	4	cop	_	_
4	speechless	speechless	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
5	;	;	PUNCT	:	_	9	punct	_	_
6	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	7	nmod:poss	_	_
7	tongue	tongue	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	9	nsubj	_	_
8	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	9	cop	_	_
9	motionless	motionless	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	4	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	15	punct	_	_
11	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	15	cc	_	_
12	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	15	nsubj	_	_
13	could	could	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	15	aux	_	_
14	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	15	advmod	_	_
15	make	make	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	9	conj	_	_
16	reply	reply	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	15	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is** | past | the Smith |  |  |  |  | speechless *property* | tree rules |
| 2 | **is** | past | Ilmarinen's tongue |  |  |  |  | motionless *property* | tree rules |
| 3 | **not** **make** | could | Ilmarinen | reply |  |  |  |  | vn build-26.1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent reply=Product |

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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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