---
title: “Pray tell me how that can be,” said the Graybeard. — The Sampo: A Wonder Tale of the Old North · tree and pragmatics
description: “Pray tell me how that can be,” said the Graybeard. Who acts: that, Graybeard. A sentence of «The Sampo: A Wonder Tale of the Old North» by James Baldwin, The Graybeard and His Son, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Sampo: A Wonder Tale of the Old North, The Graybeard and His Son, sentence 166

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“Pray tell me how that can be,” said the Graybeard.

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**Who acts:** that, Graybeard · **What happens:** pray, tell, be, say · **To what, where:** me · **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 Graybeard and His Son. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (that, Graybeard), 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:pg66819:4:166
# text = “Pray tell me how that can be,” said the Graybeard.
1	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	2	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	Pray	pray	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	11	ccomp	_	_
3	tell	tell	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	2	xcomp	_	_
4	me	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	3	iobj	_	_
5	how	how	ADV	WRB	PronType=Int	8	advmod	_	_
6	that	that	PRON	DT	Number=Sing|PronType=Dem	8	nsubj	_	_
7	can	can	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	8	aux	_	_
8	be	be	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	3	ccomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	2	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	2	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	Graybeard	Graybeard	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 | **pray** *in a quote* | infinitive |  |  |  |  |  |  | vn long-32.2 «NP V S\_INF»: agent=Pivot clause=Theme |
| 2 | **tell** *speech: assert* *in a quote* | infinitive |  |  | me |  |  |  | vn transfer\_mesg-37.1.1-1-1 «NP V NP what S»: agent=Agent i=Recipient clause=Topic |
| 3 | **can** *in a quote* | can | that |  |  |  |  |  | vn exist-47.1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 4 | **say** *speech: assert* | past | the Graybeard |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent clause=Topic |

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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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