---
title: “Tell me all about it,” said the Smith. — The Sampo: A Wonder Tale of the Old North · tree and pragmatics
description: “Tell me all about it,” said the Smith. Who acts: Smith. 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 34

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“Tell me all about it,” said the Smith.

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**Who acts:** Smith · **What happens:** tell, say · **To what, where:** Smith · **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), 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:pg66819:7:34
# text = “Tell me all about it,” said the Smith.
1	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	2	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	Tell	tell	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	9	ccomp	_	_
3	me	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	2	iobj	_	_
4	all	all	ADV	RB	_	6	advmod	_	_
5	about	about	ADP	IN	_	6	case	_	_
6	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	2	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	2	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	2	punct	_	_
9	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
10	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	11	det	_	_
11	Smith	Smith	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	9	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	9	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **tell** *speech: assert* *in a quote* | infinitive |  |  | the Smith *= smith* |  |  | about country | vn transfer\_mesg-37.1.1-1-1 «NP V NP S\_ING»: agent=Agent i=Recipient about it=Topic |
| 2 | **say** *speech: assert* | past | the Smith |  |  |  |  |  | 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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