---
title: I assure you, I swear to you, I will do nothing to offend you. — The Sampo: A Wonder Tale of the Old North · tree and pragmatics
description: I assure you, I swear to you, I will do nothing to offend you. Who acts: I. A sentence of «The Sampo: A Wonder Tale of the Old North» by James Baldwin, The Friendly Rivals, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Sampo: A Wonder Tale of the Old North, The Friendly Rivals, sentence 33

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I assure you, I swear to you, I will do nothing to offend you.

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**Who acts:** I · **What happens:** assure, swear, do, offend · **To what, where:** you, nothing

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This is a sentence of «The Sampo: A Wonder Tale of the Old North» by James Baldwin, The Friendly Rivals. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (I), 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:pg66819:21:33
# text = I assure you, I swear to you, I will do nothing to offend you.
1	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	2	nsubj	_	_
2	assure	assure	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	you	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Person=2|PronType=Prs	2	iobj	_	SpaceAfter=No
4	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	6	punct	_	_
5	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	6	nsubj	_	_
6	swear	swear	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	2	parataxis	_	_
7	to	to	ADP	IN	_	8	case	_	_
8	you	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Person=2|PronType=Prs	6	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	12	punct	_	_
10	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	12	nsubj	_	_
11	will	will	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	12	aux	_	_
12	do	do	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	6	conj	_	_
13	nothing	nothing	PRON	NN	Number=Sing|PronType=Neg	12	obj	_	_
14	to	to	PART	TO	_	15	mark	_	_
15	offend	offend	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	13	acl	_	_
16	you	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Person=2|PronType=Prs	15	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **assure** | present | I |  | you |  |  |  | vn advise-37.9 «NP V NP.recipient»: agent=Agent you=Recipient |
| 2 | **swear** | present | I |  | you |  |  |  | vn conjecture-29.5 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent |
| 3 | **do** | future | I | nothing |  |  |  |  | vn act-114-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent nothing=Eventuality |
| 4 | **offend** | to-infinitive | I *not said here* | you |  |  |  |  | vn amuse-31.1 «NP V NP»: agent=Stimulus you=Experiencer |

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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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