---
title: “Which steed shall it be?” asked the serving-man. — The Sampo: A Wonder Tale of the Old North · tree and pragmatics
description: “Which steed shall it be?” asked the serving-man. Who acts: steed, serving man. A sentence of «The Sampo: A Wonder Tale of the Old North» by James Baldwin, The Unexpected Journey, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Sampo: A Wonder Tale of the Old North, The Unexpected Journey, sentence 133

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“Which steed shall it be?” asked the serving-man.

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**Who acts:** steed, serving man · **What happens:** be, ask · **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 Unexpected Journey. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (steed, serving man), 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:pg66819:20:133
# text = “Which steed shall it be?” asked the serving-man.
1	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	6	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	Which	which	DET	WDT	PronType=Int	3	det	_	_
3	steed	steed	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	nsubj	_	_
4	shall	shall	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	6	aux	_	_
5	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	6	nsubj	_	_
6	be	be	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	9	ccomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	?	?	PUNCT	.	_	6	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	6	punct	_	_
9	asked	ask	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
10	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	13	det	_	_
11	serving	serving	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	13	compound	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	11	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	man	man	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	9	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	9	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **be** *in a quote* | shall | which steed |  |  |  |  |  | vn exist-47.1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 2 | **ask** *speech: ask* | past | the serving man |  |  |  |  |  | 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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