---
title: “They have eaten so much they can hardly breathe. — The Sampo: A Wonder Tale of the Old North · tree and pragmatics
description: “They have eaten so much they can hardly breathe. Who acts: hides. A sentence of «The Sampo: A Wonder Tale of the Old North» by James Baldwin, A Dreadful Vengeance, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Sampo: A Wonder Tale of the Old North, A Dreadful Vengeance, sentence 35

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“They have eaten so much they can hardly breathe.

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**Who acts:** hides · **What happens:** eat, breathe

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This is a sentence of «The Sampo: A Wonder Tale of the Old North» by James Baldwin, A Dreadful Vengeance. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (hides), 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:pg66819:30:35
# text = “They have eaten so much they can hardly breathe.
1	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	4	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	They	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	4	nsubj	_	_
3	have	have	AUX	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	4	aux	_	_
4	eaten	eat	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part	0	root	_	_
5	so	so	ADV	RB	_	6	advmod	_	_
6	much	much	ADV	RB	_	4	advmod	_	_
7	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	10	nsubj	_	_
8	can	can	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	10	aux	_	_
9	hardly	hardly	ADV	RB	_	10	advmod	_	_
10	breathe	breathe	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	4	parataxis	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **eat** *in a quote* | present · perfect | hides *= hide* |  |  |  |  |  | vn eat-39.1-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 2 | **breathe** *in a quote* | can | hides *= hide* |  |  |  |  | hardly *property* | vn breathe-40.1.2-1 «NP V»: 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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