---
title: “I am too busy to run to the door every time a dog barks,” she said. — The Sampo: A Wonder Tale of the Old North · tree and pragmatics
description: “I am too busy to run to the door every time a dog barks,” she said. Who acts: Woman, dog. A sentence of «The Sampo: A Wonder Tale of the Old North» by James Baldwin, The Barking Dogs, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Sampo: A Wonder Tale of the Old North, The Barking Dogs, sentence 37

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“I am too busy to run to the door every time a dog barks,” she said.

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**Who acts:** Woman, dog · **What happens:** be, run, bark, say · **To what, where:** time · **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 Barking Dogs. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Woman, dog), 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:pg66819:22:37
# text = “I am too busy to run to the door every time a dog barks,” she said.
1	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	5	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	5	nsubj	_	_
3	am	be	AUX	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	5	cop	_	_
4	too	too	ADV	RB	_	5	advmod	_	_
5	busy	busy	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	19	ccomp	_	_
6	to	to	PART	TO	_	7	mark	_	_
7	run	run	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	5	xcomp	_	_
8	to	to	ADP	IN	_	10	case	_	_
9	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	10	det	_	_
10	door	door	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	obl	_	_
11	every	every	DET	DT	PronType=Tot	12	det	_	_
12	time	time	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	obl:unmarked	_	_
13	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	14	det	_	_
14	dog	dog	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	15	nsubj	_	_
15	barks	bark	VERB	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	12	acl:relcl	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	5	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	5	punct	_	_
18	she	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	19	nsubj	_	_
19	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
20	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	19	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is** *in a quote* | present | Woman |  |  |  |  | busy *property* | tree rules |
| 2 | **run** *in a quote* | to-infinitive | Woman *not said here* |  |  |  | time | to the door *result* | vn run-51.3.2-2-1 «NP V PP.result»: agent=Theme to door=Result |
| 3 | **bark** *in a quote* | present | a dog | every time *not said here* |  |  |  |  | vn animal\_sounds-38 «NP V NP.theme»: agent=Agent time=Theme |
| 4 | **say** *speech: assert* | past | Woman |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent |

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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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- ← previous: [sentence 36](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg66819/22/36/)
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