---
title: I had no one to love but this iron, so true, so ready to help. — The Sampo: A Wonder Tale of the Old North · tree and pragmatics
description: I had no one to love but this iron, so true, so ready to help. Who acts: I, one. A sentence of «The Sampo: A Wonder Tale of the Old North» by James Baldwin, The Slave Boy, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Sampo: A Wonder Tale of the Old North, The Slave Boy, sentence 101

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I had no one to love but this iron, so true, so ready to help.

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**Who acts:** I, one · **What happens:** have, love, help · **To what, where:** one

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This is a sentence of «The Sampo: A Wonder Tale of the Old North» by James Baldwin, The Slave Boy. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (I, one), 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:pg66819:29:101
# text = I had no one to love but this iron, so true, so ready to help.
1	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	2	nsubj	_	_
2	had	have	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	no	no	DET	DT	PronType=Neg	4	det	_	_
4	one	one	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	2	obj	_	_
5	to	to	PART	TO	_	6	mark	_	_
6	love	love	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	4	acl	_	_
7	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	9	cc	_	_
8	this	this	DET	DT	Number=Sing|PronType=Dem	9	det	_	_
9	iron	iron	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	12	punct	_	_
11	so	so	ADV	RB	_	12	advmod	_	_
12	true	true	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	2	parataxis	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	15	punct	_	_
14	so	so	ADV	RB	_	15	advmod	_	_
15	ready	ready	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	12	conj	_	_
16	to	to	PART	TO	_	17	mark	_	_
17	help	help	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	15	xcomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
18	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **have** | past | I | no one but this iron |  |  |  |  | vn birth-28.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent one=Patient |
| 2 | **love** | to-infinitive | I *not said here* | no one but this iron *not said here* |  |  |  |  | vn admire-31.2-1 «NP V S\_INF»: agent=Experiencer |
| 3 | **help** | to-infinitive | no one but this iron *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn help-72.1-1-1 «NP V PP.theme»: 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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