---
title: Delay not a moment, but go on board and ask no questions. — The Sampo: A Wonder Tale of the Old North · tree and pragmatics
description: Delay not a moment, but go on board and ask no questions. Who acts: Delay. 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 85

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Delay not a moment, but go on board and ask no questions.

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**Who acts:** Delay · **What happens:** go, ask · **To what, where:** board, questions

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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 (Delay), 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:pg66819:12:85
# text = Delay not a moment, but go on board and ask no questions.
1	Delay	Delay	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	7	nsubj	_	_
2	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	4	advmod	_	_
3	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	4	det	_	_
4	moment	moment	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	1	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
5	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	7	punct	_	_
6	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	7	cc	_	_
7	go	go	VERB	VB	Mood=Imp|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
8	on	on	ADP	IN	_	9	case	_	_
9	board	board	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	obl	_	_
10	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	11	cc	_	_
11	ask	ask	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	7	conj	_	_
12	no	no	DET	DT	PronType=Neg	13	det	_	_
13	questions	question	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	11	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	7	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **go** | infinitive | Delay  a moment |  |  | board |  |  | vn occur-48.3-2 «NP V PP»: agent=Theme on board=Location |
| 2 | **ask** *speech: ask* | infinitive | Delay  a moment *not said here* | no questions |  |  |  |  | vn inquire-37.1.2 «NP V NP.recipient»: agent=Agent question=Recipient |

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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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