---
title: Busy, very busy, were the little waiting-maidens, serving food to al… — The Sampo: A Wonder Tale of the Old North · tree and pragmatics
description: Busy, very busy, were the little waiting-maidens, serving food to all the people. Who acts: Busy little waiting maidens. 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.
---

<!-- md -->
[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg66819/27/92/)

<!-- 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 Wedding Feast](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg66819/27/) / 92

# The Sampo: A Wonder Tale of the Old North, The Wedding Feast, sentence 92

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
Busy, very busy, were the little waiting-maidens, serving food to all the people.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** Busy little waiting maidens · **What happens:** be, serve · **To what, where:** Busy little waiting maidens, food, people

<!-- .vabout -->
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 (Busy little waiting maidens), 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:pg66819:27:92
# text = Busy, very busy, were the little waiting-maidens, serving food to all the people.
1	Busy	busy	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	11	amod	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	4	punct	_	_
3	very	very	ADV	RB	_	4	advmod	_	_
4	busy	busy	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	1	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
5	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	1	punct	_	_
6	were	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	11	cop	_	_
7	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	11	det	_	_
8	little	little	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	11	amod	_	_
9	waiting	waiting	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	11	compound	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	9	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	maidens	maiden	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	13	punct	_	_
13	serving	serve	VERB	VBG	VerbForm=Ger	11	acl	_	_
14	food	food	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	13	obj	_	_
15	to	to	ADP	IN	_	18	case	_	_
16	all	all	DET	PDT	PronType=Tot	18	det:predet	_	_
17	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	18	det	_	_
18	people	people	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	13	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
19	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	11	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is a** | past |  | the Busy little waiting maidens |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **serve** | gerund | the Busy little waiting maidens *not said here* | food | all people |  |  |  | vn fulfilling-13.4.1-1 «NP V NP PP.recipient»: agent=Agent food=Theme to people=Recipient |

<!-- .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 91](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg66819/27/91/)
- next →: [sentence 93](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg66819/27/93/)
- ↑ back to [The Wedding Feast](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg66819/27/)