---
title: Why may we not sing?” cried Ahti, always restless and in the way. — The Sampo: A Wonder Tale of the Old North · tree and pragmatics
description: Why may we not sing?” cried Ahti, always restless and in the way. Who acts: we. A sentence of «The Sampo: A Wonder Tale of the Old North» by James Baldwin, The Flight, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

<!-- md -->
[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg66819/36/72/)

<!-- crumbs -->
[home](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) / [corpora](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/) / [tales](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/) / [The Sampo: A Wonder Tale of the Old No…](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg66819/) / [The Flight](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg66819/36/) / 72

# The Sampo: A Wonder Tale of the Old North, The Flight, sentence 72

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
Why may we not sing?” cried Ahti, always restless and in the way.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** we · **What happens:** not sing, cry · **Speech:** someone speaks here

<!-- .vabout -->
This is a sentence of «The Sampo: A Wonder Tale of the Old North» by James Baldwin, The Flight. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (we), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

<!-- .note-en -->
**Mova's own parse.** This tree may be wrong.

## The tree {#tree}

```conllu
# sent_id = book:pg66819:36:72
# text = Why may we not sing?” cried Ahti, always restless and in the way.
1	Why	why	ADV	WRB	PronType=Int	5	advmod	_	_
2	may	may	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	5	aux	_	_
3	we	we	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=1|PronType=Prs	5	nsubj	_	_
4	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	5	advmod	_	_
5	sing	sing	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	8	ccomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	?	?	PUNCT	.	_	5	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	5	punct	_	_
8	cried	cry	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
9	Ahti	Ahti	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	8	flat	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	12	punct	_	_
11	always	always	ADV	RB	PronType=Tot	12	advmod	_	_
12	restless	restless	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	8	parataxis	_	_
13	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	16	cc	_	_
14	in	in	ADP	IN	_	16	case	_	_
15	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	16	det	_	_
16	way	way	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	12	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	8	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **not** **sing** *speech: express* | may | we |  |  |  |  |  | vn sound\_emission-43.2 «NP.location V PP.theme»: agent=Location |
| 2 | **cry** *speech: express* *in a quote* | past |  |  |  |  |  | Ahti *flat* | vn manner\_speaking-37.3 «NP V how S\_INF»: agent=Agent clause=Topic |

<!-- .note -->
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.

<!-- div src -->

**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.

<!-- /div -->

<!-- pn -->
- ← previous: [sentence 71](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg66819/36/71/)
- next →: [sentence 73](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg66819/36/73/)
- ↑ back to [The Flight](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg66819/36/)