---
title: None but women say, ‘I cannot,’ none but cowards say, ‘I dare not.’” — The Sampo: A Wonder Tale of the Old North · tree and pragmatics
description: None but women say, ‘I cannot,’ none but cowards say, ‘I dare not.’” Who acts: None, I. A sentence of «The Sampo: A Wonder Tale of the Old North» by James Baldwin, The Famine, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Sampo: A Wonder Tale of the Old North, The Famine, sentence 75

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None but women say, ‘I cannot,’ none but cowards say, ‘I dare not.’”

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**Who acts:** None, I · **What happens:** say, ', not dare · **To what, where:** none · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «The Sampo: A Wonder Tale of the Old North» by James Baldwin, The Famine. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (None, I), 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:pg66819:32:75
# text = None but women say, ‘I cannot,’ none but cowards say, ‘I dare not.’”
1	None	none	PRON	NN	PronType=Neg	4	nsubj	_	_
2	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	3	cc	_	_
3	women	woman	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	1	conj	_	_
4	say	say	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
5	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	11	punct	_	_
6	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	11	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	8	nsubj	_	_
8	can	can	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	11	aux	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	8	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	8	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	’	'	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	4	ccomp	_	_
12	none	none	PRON	NN	PronType=Neg	11	obj	_	_
13	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	14	cc	_	_
14	cowards	coward	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	12	conj	_	_
15	say	say	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	12	acl:relcl	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	19	punct	_	_
17	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	19	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
18	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	19	nsubj	_	_
19	dare	dare	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	11	parataxis	_	_
20	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	19	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
21	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	11	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
22	’	'	PUNCT	''	_	11	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
23	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **say** *speech: assert* | present | None  women |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent clause=Topic |
| 2 | **'** | can |  | none  cowards |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 3 | **say** *speech: assert* | present |  |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent |
| 4 | **not** **dare** | present | I |  |  |  |  |  | vn urge-58.1-1 «NP V NP»: 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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