---
title: “Tell me what it is and I will perform it,” answered the hero. — The Sampo: A Wonder Tale of the Old North · tree and pragmatics
description: “Tell me what it is and I will perform it,” answered the hero. Who acts: task, I, hero. A sentence of «The Sampo: A Wonder Tale of the Old North» by James Baldwin, The Field of Serpents, 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/pg66819/24/26/)

<!-- 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 Field of Serpents](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg66819/24/) / 26

# The Sampo: A Wonder Tale of the Old North, The Field of Serpents, sentence 26

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
“Tell me what it is and I will perform it,” answered the hero.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** task, I, hero · **What happens:** tell, be, perform, answer · **To what, where:** me, task · **Speech:** someone speaks here

<!-- .vabout -->
This is a sentence of «The Sampo: A Wonder Tale of the Old North» by James Baldwin, The Field of Serpents. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (task, I, hero), 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:pg66819:24:26
# text = “Tell me what it is and I will perform it,” answered the hero.
1	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	2	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	Tell	tell	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	14	ccomp	_	_
3	me	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	2	iobj	_	_
4	what	what	PRON	WP	PronType=Int	2	ccomp	_	_
5	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	4	nsubj	_	_
6	is	be	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	4	cop	_	_
7	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	10	cc	_	_
8	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	10	nsubj	_	_
9	will	will	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	10	aux	_	_
10	perform	perform	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	2	conj	_	_
11	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	10	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	2	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	2	punct	_	_
14	answered	answer	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
15	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	16	det	_	_
16	hero	hero	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	14	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	14	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **tell** *speech: assert* *in a quote* | infinitive |  |  | me |  |  |  | vn transfer\_mesg-37.1.1-1-1 «NP V NP.recipient»: agent=Agent i=Recipient |
| 2 | **is a** *in a quote* | present | task |  |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 3 | **perform** *in a quote* | future | I | task |  |  |  |  | vn performance-26.7 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent it=Theme |
| 4 | **answer** *speech: assert* | past | the hero |  |  |  |  |  | tree rules |

<!-- .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 25](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg66819/24/25/)
- next →: [sentence 27](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg66819/24/27/)
- ↑ back to [The Field of Serpents](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg66819/24/)