---
title: If you fail in the contest your life will be forfeited. — The Sampo: A Wonder Tale of the Old North · tree and pragmatics
description: If you fail in the contest your life will be forfeited. Who acts: you. 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 38

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If you fail in the contest your life will be forfeited.

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**Who acts:** you · **What happens:** fail, forfeit · **To what, where:** contest, life

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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 (you), 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:pg66819:17:38
# text = If you fail in the contest your life will be forfeited.
1	If	if	SCONJ	IN	_	3	mark	_	_
2	you	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Person=2|PronType=Prs	3	nsubj	_	_
3	fail	fail	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=2|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	11	advcl	_	_
4	in	in	ADP	IN	_	6	case	_	_
5	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	6	det	_	_
6	contest	contest	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	obl	_	_
7	your	your	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Person=2|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	8	nmod:poss	_	_
8	life	life	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	11	nsubj:pass	_	_
9	will	will	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	11	aux	_	_
10	be	be	AUX	VB	VerbForm=Inf	11	aux:pass	_	_
11	forfeited	forfeit	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	11	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **fail** *a condition, not said to happen* | present | you |  |  | the contest |  |  | vn succeed-74-3-1-1 «NP V PP.eventuality S\_ING»: agent=Agent in contest=Eventuality |
| 2 | **forfeit** | future · passive |  | your life |  |  |  |  | vn contribute-13.2-1-1 «NP V NP.theme (PP)»: subject=Theme |

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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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