---
title: What shall I say to the pitiless mother at Pohyola when I return emp… — The Sampo: A Wonder Tale of the Old North · tree and pragmatics
description: What shall I say to the pitiless mother at Pohyola when I return empty-handed? Who acts: I. 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 98

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What shall I say to the pitiless mother at Pohyola when I return empty-handed?

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**Who acts:** I · **What happens:** say, return, hand · **To what, where:** pitiless mother · **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 (I), 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:pg66819:25:98
# text = What shall I say to the pitiless mother at Pohyola when I return empty-handed?
1	What	what	PRON	WP	PronType=Int	4	obj	_	_
2	shall	shall	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	4	aux	_	_
3	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	4	nsubj	_	_
4	say	say	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	0	root	_	_
5	to	to	ADP	IN	_	8	case	_	_
6	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	8	det	_	_
7	pitiless	pitiless	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	8	amod	_	_
8	mother	mother	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	obl	_	_
9	at	at	ADP	IN	_	10	case	_	_
10	Pohyola	Pohyola	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	8	nmod	_	_
11	when	when	ADV	WRB	PronType=Int	13	advmod	_	_
12	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	13	nsubj	_	_
13	return	return	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	4	advcl	_	_
14	empty	empty	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	16	amod	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	14	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	handed	hand	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	13	xcomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	?	?	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **say** *speech: assert* | shall | I |  | the pitiless mother at Pohyola |  |  | What *obj* | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V NP PP.recipient»: agent=Agent what=Topic to mother=Recipient |
| 2 | **return** | present | I |  |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 3 | **hand** | participle | I *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn send-11.1-1 «NP V NP»: 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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