---
title: “But how shall I go, not knowing the road? — The Sampo: A Wonder Tale of the Old North · tree and pragmatics
description: “But how shall I go, not knowing the road? Who acts: friend. A sentence of «The Sampo: A Wonder Tale of the Old North» by James Baldwin, The Wisdom Keeper, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Sampo: A Wonder Tale of the Old North, The Wisdom Keeper, sentence 25

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“But how shall I go, not knowing the road?

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**Who acts:** friend · **What happens:** go, not know · **To what, where:** road

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This is a sentence of «The Sampo: A Wonder Tale of the Old North» by James Baldwin, The Wisdom Keeper. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (friend), 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:pg66819:17:25
# text = “But how shall I go, not knowing the road?
1	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	6	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	But	but	CCONJ	CC	_	6	cc	_	_
3	how	how	ADV	WRB	PronType=Int	6	advmod	_	_
4	shall	shall	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	6	aux	_	_
5	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	6	nsubj	_	_
6	go	go	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	9	punct	_	_
8	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	9	advmod	_	_
9	knowing	know	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	6	advcl	_	_
10	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	11	det	_	_
11	road	road	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	9	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	?	?	PUNCT	.	_	6	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **go** *in a quote* | shall | friend and gentle helper *= friend* |  |  |  |  |  | vn disappearance-48.2-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 2 | **not** **know** *in a quote* | gerund | friend and gentle helper *= friend* *not said here* | the road |  |  |  |  | vn comprehend-87.2-1-1-1 «NP V NP PP.attribute»: agent=Experiencer road=Stimulus |

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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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