---
title: “But the handsomest of people are sometimes rotten at heart, and the… — The Sampo: A Wonder Tale of the Old North · tree and pragmatics
description: “But the handsomest of people are sometimes rotten at heart, and the handsomest of cakes are sometimes unfit to be eaten.” Who acts: handsomest. 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 93

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“But the handsomest of people are sometimes rotten at heart, and the handsomest of cakes are sometimes unfit to be eaten.”

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**Who acts:** handsomest · **What happens:** be, eat · **To what, where:** heart

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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 (handsomest), 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:pg66819:29:93
# text = “But the handsomest of people are sometimes rotten at heart, and the handsomest of cakes are sometimes unfit to be eaten.”
1	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	4	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	But	but	CCONJ	CC	_	4	cc	_	_
3	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	4	det	_	_
4	handsomest	handsome	ADJ	JJS	Degree=Sup	0	root	_	_
5	of	of	ADP	IN	_	6	case	_	_
6	people	people	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	9	obl	_	_
7	are	be	AUX	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	9	cop	_	_
8	sometimes	sometimes	ADV	RB	PronType=Ind	9	advmod	_	_
9	rotten	rotten	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	4	parataxis	_	_
10	at	at	ADP	IN	_	11	case	_	_
11	heart	heart	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	9	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	15	punct	_	_
13	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	15	cc	_	_
14	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	15	det	_	_
15	handsomest	handsome	ADJ	JJS	Degree=Sup	20	nsubj	_	_
16	of	of	ADP	IN	_	17	case	_	_
17	cakes	cake	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	15	obl	_	_
18	are	be	AUX	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	20	cop	_	_
19	sometimes	sometimes	ADV	RB	PronType=Ind	20	advmod	_	_
20	unfit	unfit	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	9	conj	_	_
21	to	to	PART	TO	_	23	mark	_	_
22	be	be	AUX	VB	VerbForm=Inf	23	aux:pass	_	_
23	eaten	eat	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	20	advcl	_	SpaceAfter=No
24	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	20	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
25	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is** *in a quote* | present |  |  |  | heart |  | of people; rotten, sometimes *property* | tree rules |
| 2 | **is** *in a quote* | present | the handsomest of cakes |  |  |  |  | sometimes, unfit *property* | tree rules |
| 3 | **eat** *in a quote* | to-infinitive · passive | the handsomest of cakes *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn eat-39.1-1 «NP V» |

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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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