---
title: At length the Smith made out to stammer, “Tell me, my brother, where… — The Sampo: A Wonder Tale of the Old North · tree and pragmatics
description: At length the Smith made out to stammer, “Tell me, my brother, where have you been these many months?” Who acts: Smith, you. A sentence of «The Sampo: A Wonder Tale of the Old North» by James Baldwin, The Smithy, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Sampo: A Wonder Tale of the Old North, The Smithy, sentence 31

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At length the Smith made out to stammer, “Tell me, my brother, where have you been these many months?”

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**Who acts:** Smith, you · **What happens:** make out, stammer, tell, have, be · **To what, where:** length, brother, Smith, many months · **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 Smithy. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Smith, you), 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:pg66819:7:31
# text = At length the Smith made out to stammer, “Tell me, my brother, where have you been these many months?”
1	At	at	ADP	IN	_	2	case	_	_
2	length	length	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	obl	_	_
3	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	4	det	_	_
4	Smith	Smith	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	5	nsubj	_	_
5	made	make	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
6	out	out	ADP	RP	_	5	compound:prt	_	_
7	to	to	PART	TO	_	8	mark	_	_
8	stammer	stammer	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	5	xcomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	11	punct	_	_
10	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	11	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	Tell	tell	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	5	conj	_	_
12	me	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	11	iobj	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	15	punct	_	_
14	my	my	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Sing|Person=1|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	15	nmod:poss	_	_
15	brother	brother	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	11	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	18	punct	_	_
17	where	where	ADV	WRB	PronType=Rel	18	advmod	_	_
18	have	have	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=2|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	23	advcl	_	_
19	you	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Person=2|PronType=Prs	18	nsubj	_	_
20	been	be	AUX	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part	23	cop	_	_
21	these	this	DET	DT	Number=Plur|PronType=Dem	23	det	_	_
22	many	many	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	23	amod	_	_
23	months	month	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	11	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
24	?	?	PUNCT	.	_	5	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
25	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	5	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **make out** | past | the Smith |  |  | length |  |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **stammer** *speech: other* | to-infinitive | the Smith *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn manner\_speaking-37.3 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 3 | **tell** *speech: assert* *in a quote* | infinitive | the Smith *not said here* | my brother | the Smith *= smith* |  |  |  | vn transfer\_mesg-37.1.1-1-1 «NP V NP.recipient»: agent=Agent i=Recipient |
| 4 | **have** *in a quote* | present | you |  |  |  |  |  | vn birth-28.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent |
| 5 | **is a** *in a quote* | participle |  | this many months |  |  |  |  | tree rules |

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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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