---
title: “Why did you leave us, O best of singers?” they asked. — The Sampo: A Wonder Tale of the Old North · tree and pragmatics
description: “Why did you leave us, O best of singers?” they asked. Who acts: you, neighbor. A sentence of «The Sampo: A Wonder Tale of the Old North» by James Baldwin, The Hero’s Return, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Sampo: A Wonder Tale of the Old North, The Hero’s Return, sentence 32

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“Why did you leave us, O best of singers?” they asked.

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**Who acts:** you, neighbor · **What happens:** leave, ask · **To what, where:** us · **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 Hero’s Return. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (you, neighbor), 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:pg66819:16:32
# text = “Why did you leave us, O best of singers?” they asked.
1	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	5	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	Why	why	ADV	WRB	PronType=Int	5	advmod	_	_
3	did	do	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=2|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	5	aux	_	_
4	you	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Person=2|PronType=Prs	5	nsubj	_	_
5	leave	leave	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	15	ccomp	_	_
6	us	we	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Plur|Person=1|PronType=Prs	5	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	9	punct	_	_
8	O	o	INTJ	UH	_	9	discourse	_	_
9	best	good	ADJ	JJS	Degree=Sup	5	obj	_	_
10	of	of	ADP	IN	_	11	case	_	_
11	singers	singer	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	9	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	?	?	PUNCT	.	_	5	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	5	punct	_	_
14	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	15	nsubj	_	_
15	asked	ask	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	15	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **leave** *in a quote* | past · do-support | you | us |  |  |  |  | vn sustain-55.6-1 «NP V NP ADJ»: agent=Agent we=Theme good=Attribute |
| 2 | **ask** *speech: ask* | past | neighbor |  |  |  |  |  | vn inquire-37.1.2 «NP V how S»: agent=Agent clause=Topic |

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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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