---
title: How can we distinguish him in the great crowd of friends and neighbo… — The Sampo: A Wonder Tale of the Old North · tree and pragmatics
description: How can we distinguish him in the great crowd of friends and neighbors?” asked a little waiting-maiden. Who acts: we. A sentence of «The Sampo: A Wonder Tale of the Old North» by James Baldwin, The Wedding Feast, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Sampo: A Wonder Tale of the Old North, The Wedding Feast, sentence 61

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How can we distinguish him in the great crowd of friends and neighbors?” asked a little waiting-maiden.

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**Who acts:** we · **What happens:** distinguish, ask · **To what, where:** bridegroom, great crowd, little waiting maiden · **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 Wedding Feast. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (we), 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:pg66819:27:61
# text = How can we distinguish him in the great crowd of friends and neighbors?” asked a little waiting-maiden.
1	How	how	ADV	WRB	PronType=Int	4	advmod	_	_
2	can	can	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	4	aux	_	_
3	we	we	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=1|PronType=Prs	4	nsubj	_	_
4	distinguish	distinguish	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	16	ccomp	_	_
5	him	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	4	obj	_	_
6	in	in	ADP	IN	_	9	case	_	_
7	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	9	det	_	_
8	great	great	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	9	amod	_	_
9	crowd	crowd	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	obl	_	_
10	of	of	ADP	IN	_	11	case	_	_
11	friends	friend	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	9	nmod	_	_
12	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	13	cc	_	_
13	neighbors	neighbor	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	11	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	?	?	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	4	punct	_	_
16	asked	ask	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
17	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	21	det	_	_
18	little	little	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	21	amod	_	_
19	waiting	waiting	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	21	compound	_	SpaceAfter=No
20	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	19	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
21	maiden	maiden	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	16	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
22	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	16	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **distinguish** | can | we | bridegroom |  | the great crowd of friends and neighbors |  |  | vn distinguish-23.5-1 «NP V NP PP»: agent=Attribute he=Theme |
| 2 | **ask** *speech: ask* *in a quote* | past |  | a little waiting maiden |  |  |  |  | vn inquire-37.1.2 «NP V NP whether S»: agent=Agent maiden=Recipient clause=Topic |

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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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