---
title: “I will be the hero’s witness,” she croaked. — The Sampo: A Wonder Tale of the Old North · tree and pragmatics
description: “I will be the hero’s witness,” she croaked. Who acts: wise Dame, Woman. A sentence of «The Sampo: A Wonder Tale of the Old North» by James Baldwin, The Great Pike, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Sampo: A Wonder Tale of the Old North, The Great Pike, sentence 13

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“I will be the hero’s witness,” she croaked.

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**Who acts:** wise Dame, Woman · **What happens:** be, croak · **To what, where:** witness · **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 Great Pike. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (wise Dame, Woman), 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:pg66819:25:13
# text = “I will be the hero’s witness,” she croaked.
1	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	8	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	8	nsubj	_	_
3	will	will	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	8	aux	_	_
4	be	be	AUX	VB	VerbForm=Inf	8	cop	_	_
5	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	6	det	_	_
6	hero	hero	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	8	nmod:poss	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	’s	's	PART	POS	_	6	case	_	_
8	witness	witness	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	12	ccomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	8	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	8	punct	_	_
11	she	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	12	nsubj	_	_
12	croaked	croak	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	12	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is a** *in a quote* | future | wise Dame *= dame* | the hero's witness |  |  |  | the hero *nmod:poss* | tree rules |
| 2 | **croak** | past | Woman |  |  |  |  |  | vn animal\_sounds-38 «NP V»: 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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