---
title: Shall this poor Smith have my daughter for performing so paltry a ta… — The Sampo: A Wonder Tale of the Old North · tree and pragmatics
description: Shall this poor Smith have my daughter for performing so paltry a task as that? Who acts: this. 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 23

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Shall this poor Smith have my daughter for performing so paltry a task as that?

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**Who acts:** this · **What happens:** have, perform · **To what, where:** daughter, paltry task

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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 (this), 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:pg66819:25:23
# text = Shall this poor Smith have my daughter for performing so paltry a task as that?
1	Shall	shall	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	5	aux	_	_
2	this	this	PRON	DT	Number=Sing|PronType=Dem	5	nsubj	_	_
3	poor	poor	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	4	amod	_	_
4	Smith	Smith	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	5	nsubj	_	_
5	have	have	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	0	root	_	_
6	my	my	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Sing|Person=1|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	7	nmod:poss	_	_
7	daughter	daughter	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	obj	_	_
8	for	for	SCONJ	IN	_	9	mark	_	_
9	performing	perform	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	5	advcl	_	_
10	so	so	ADV	RB	_	11	advmod	_	_
11	paltry	paltry	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	13	amod	_	_
12	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	13	det	_	_
13	task	task	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	9	obj	_	_
14	as	as	ADP	IN	_	15	case	_	_
15	that	that	PRON	DT	Number=Sing|PronType=Dem	9	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	?	?	PUNCT	.	_	5	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **have** | shall | this | my daughter |  |  |  | poor Smith *nsubj* | vn birth-28.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent daughter=Patient |
| 2 | **perform** | gerund | this *not said here* | a paltry task |  |  |  | as that | vn performance-26.7 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent task=Theme |

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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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