---
title: “Perhaps the missing words are beneath the tongue of some four-foote… — The Sampo: A Wonder Tale of the Old North · tree and pragmatics
description: “Perhaps the missing words are beneath the tongue of some four-footed animal,” he said. Who acts: missing words, animal. A sentence of «The Sampo: A Wonder Tale of the Old North» by James Baldwin, The Unfinished Boat, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Sampo: A Wonder Tale of the Old North, The Unfinished Boat, sentence 136

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“Perhaps the missing words are beneath the tongue of some four-footed animal,” he said.

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**Who acts:** missing words, animal · **What happens:** be, say · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «The Sampo: A Wonder Tale of the Old North» by James Baldwin, The Unfinished Boat. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (missing words, animal), 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:pg66819:13:136
# text = “Perhaps the missing words are beneath the tongue of some four-footed animal,” he said.
1	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	9	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	Perhaps	perhaps	ADV	RB	_	9	advmod	_	_
3	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	5	det	_	_
4	missing	missing	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	5	amod	_	_
5	words	word	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	9	nsubj	_	_
6	are	be	AUX	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	9	cop	_	_
7	beneath	beneath	ADP	IN	_	9	case	_	_
8	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	9	det	_	_
9	tongue	tongue	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	19	ccomp	_	_
10	of	of	ADP	IN	_	15	case	_	_
11	some	some	DET	DT	PronType=Ind	15	det	_	_
12	four	four	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	14	nummod	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	12	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	footed	footed	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	15	amod	_	_
15	animal	animal	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	9	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	9	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	9	punct	_	_
18	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	19	nsubj	_	_
19	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
20	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	19	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is** *in a quote* | present | the missing words |  |  |  |  | beneath the tongue; of some footed animal; perhaps *property* | tree rules |
| 2 | **say** *speech: assert* | past | animal |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent |

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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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