---
title: “Never yet have I failed to do that which I have agreed to do.” — The Sampo: A Wonder Tale of the Old North · tree and pragmatics
description: “Never yet have I failed to do that which I have agreed to do.” Who acts: Minstrel. A sentence of «The Sampo: A Wonder Tale of the Old North» by James Baldwin, Mistress and Minstrel, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

<!-- md -->
[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg66819/2/154/)

<!-- crumbs -->
[home](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) / [corpora](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/) / [tales](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/) / [The Sampo: A Wonder Tale of the Old No…](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg66819/) / [Mistress and Minstrel](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg66819/2/) / 154

# The Sampo: A Wonder Tale of the Old North, Mistress and Minstrel, sentence 154

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
“Never yet have I failed to do that which I have agreed to do.”

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** Minstrel · **What happens:** not have, fail, not do, agree, do · **To what, where:** that · **Speech:** someone speaks here

<!-- .vabout -->
This is a sentence of «The Sampo: A Wonder Tale of the Old North» by James Baldwin, Mistress and Minstrel. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Minstrel), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

<!-- .note-en -->
**Mova's own parse.** This tree may be wrong.

## The tree {#tree}

```conllu
# sent_id = book:pg66819:2:154
# text = “Never yet have I failed to do that which I have agreed to do.”
1	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	4	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	Never	never	ADV	RB	PronType=Neg	4	advmod	_	_
3	yet	yet	ADV	RB	_	4	advmod	_	_
4	have	have	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
5	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	6	nsubj	_	_
6	failed	fail	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	4	ccomp	_	_
7	to	to	PART	TO	_	8	mark	_	_
8	do	do	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	6	xcomp	_	_
9	that	that	PRON	DT	Number=Sing|PronType=Dem	13	nsubj	_	_
10	which	which	PRON	WDT	PronType=Rel	13	nsubj:pass	_	_
11	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	13	nsubj	_	_
12	have	have	AUX	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	13	aux	_	_
13	agreed	agree	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	8	advcl	_	_
14	to	to	PART	TO	_	15	mark	_	_
15	do	do	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	13	xcomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **not** **have** *in a quote* | present |  |  |  |  | yet |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **fail** *in a quote* | past | the Minstrel *= minstrel* |  |  |  |  |  | vn succeed-74-3-1-1 «NP V S\_INF»: agent=Agent clause=Eventuality |
| 3 | **not** **do** *in a quote* | to-infinitive | the Minstrel *= minstrel* *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn act-114-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 4 | **agree** *speech: agree* *in a quote* | present · perfect · passive |  | that |  |  |  | which *nsubj:pass*; I *nsubj* | vn correspond-36.1-1 «NP V PP.co-agent that S»: subject=Co-Agent clause=Topic |
| 5 | **do** *not said to happen, in a quote* | to-infinitive |  |  |  |  |  |  | vn act-114-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent |

<!-- .note -->
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.

<!-- div src -->

**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.

<!-- /div -->

<!-- pn -->
- ← previous: [sentence 153](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg66819/2/153/)
- next →: [sentence 155](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg66819/2/155/)
- ↑ back to [Mistress and Minstrel](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg66819/2/)