---
title: “What is it, papa?” answered the child, sitting still on the floor. — The Sampo: A Wonder Tale of the Old North · tree and pragmatics
description: “What is it, papa?” answered the child, sitting still on the floor. Who acts: papa. 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.
---

<!-- md -->
[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg66819/22/58/)

<!-- 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/) / [The Barking Dogs](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg66819/22/) / 58

# The Sampo: A Wonder Tale of the Old North, The Barking Dogs, sentence 58

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
“What is it, papa?” answered the child, sitting still on the floor.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** papa · **What happens:** be, answer, sit · **To what, where:** papa, child, floor · **Speech:** someone speaks here

<!-- .vabout -->
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 (papa), 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:pg66819:22:58
# text = “What is it, papa?” answered the child, sitting still on the floor.
1	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	6	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	What	what	PRON	WP	PronType=Int	6	nsubj	_	_
3	is	be	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	6	cop	_	_
4	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	6	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
5	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	6	punct	_	_
6	papa	papa	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	9	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	?	?	PUNCT	.	_	6	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	6	punct	_	_
9	answered	answer	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
10	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	11	det	_	_
11	child	child	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	9	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	13	punct	_	_
13	sitting	sit	VERB	VBG	VerbForm=Ger	9	advcl	_	_
14	still	still	ADV	RB	_	13	advmod	_	_
15	on	on	ADP	IN	_	17	case	_	_
16	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	17	det	_	_
17	floor	floor	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	13	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
18	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	9	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is a** *in a quote* | present |  | papa |  |  |  | What *nsubj*; bear *nsubj* | tree rules |
| 2 | **answer** *speech: ask* | past | papa |  | the child |  |  |  | vn reciprocate-112-1 «NP V PP»: agent=Agent child=Eventuality |
| 3 | **sit** | gerund | papa *not said here* |  |  | the floor | still |  | vn assuming\_position-50 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Agent on floor=Location |

<!-- .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 57](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg66819/22/57/)
- next →: [sentence 59](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg66819/22/59/)
- ↑ back to [The Barking Dogs](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg66819/22/)