---
title: “It is long since we tasted food,” said the Minstrel. — The Sampo: A Wonder Tale of the Old North · tree and pragmatics
description: “It is long since we tasted food,” said the Minstrel. Who acts: head, we, Minstrel. A sentence of «The Sampo: A Wonder Tale of the Old North» by James Baldwin, The Kantele, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Sampo: A Wonder Tale of the Old North, The Kantele, sentence 52

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“It is long since we tasted food,” said the Minstrel.

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**Who acts:** head, we, Minstrel · **What happens:** be, taste, say · **To what, where:** food · **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 Kantele. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (head, we, Minstrel), 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:pg66819:34:52
# text = “It is long since we tasted food,” said the Minstrel.
1	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	4	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	It	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	4	nsubj	_	_
3	is	be	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	4	cop	_	_
4	long	long	ADV	RB	Degree=Pos	11	advmod	_	_
5	since	since	SCONJ	IN	_	7	mark	_	_
6	we	we	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=1|PronType=Prs	7	nsubj	_	_
7	tasted	taste	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	4	advcl	_	_
8	food	food	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	4	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	4	punct	_	_
11	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
12	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	13	det	_	_
13	Minstrel	Minstrel	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	11	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	11	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 | head |  |  |  |  | long *property* | tree rules |
| 2 | **taste** *in a quote* | past | we | food |  |  |  |  | vn seem-109 «NP V ADJ»: agent=Theme food=Attribute |
| 3 | **say** *speech: assert* | past | the Minstrel |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: 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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