---
title: The whitest of bread and the yellowest of butter, cream cakes, nuts,… — The Sampo: A Wonder Tale of the Old North · tree and pragmatics
description: The whitest of bread and the yellowest of butter, cream cakes, nuts, and apples—who could ask for more than these? Who acts: cream cakes. 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 95

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The whitest of bread and the yellowest of butter, cream cakes, nuts, and apples—who could ask for more than these?

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**Who acts:** cream cakes · **What happens:** ask · **To what, where:** more, cream cakes

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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 (cream cakes), 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:pg66819:27:95
# text = The whitest of bread and the yellowest of butter, cream cakes, nuts, and apples—who could ask for more than these?
1	The	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	2	det	_	_
2	whitest	white	ADJ	JJS	Degree=Sup	12	nsubj	_	_
3	of	of	ADP	IN	_	4	case	_	_
4	bread	bread	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	2	obl	_	_
5	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	7	cc	_	_
6	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	7	det	_	_
7	yellowest	yellow	ADJ	JJS	Degree=Sup	2	conj	_	_
8	of	of	ADP	IN	_	9	case	_	_
9	butter	butter	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	12	punct	_	_
11	cream	cream	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	12	compound	_	_
12	cakes	cake	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	14	punct	_	_
14	nuts	nut	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	12	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	17	punct	_	_
16	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	17	cc	_	_
17	apples	apple	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	12	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
18	—	-	PUNCT	:	_	21	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
19	who	who	PRON	WP	PronType=Rel	21	nsubj	_	_
20	could	could	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	21	aux	_	_
21	ask	ask	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	12	parataxis	_	_
22	for	for	ADP	IN	_	23	case	_	_
23	more	more	ADJ	JJR	Degree=Cmp	21	obj	_	_
24	than	than	ADP	IN	_	25	case	_	_
25	these	this	PRON	DT	Number=Plur|PronType=Dem	23	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
26	?	?	PUNCT	.	_	12	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **ask** *speech: ask* | could | cream cakes and nuts and apples | more than these |  |  |  |  | vn inquire-37.1.2 «NP V NP.recipient»: agent=Agent more=Recipient |

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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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