---
title: He is old, he is cunning, he has outwitted me; shall I do the thing… — The Sampo: A Wonder Tale of the Old North · tree and pragmatics
description: He is old, he is cunning, he has outwitted me; shall I do the thing which he sent me to perform?” Who acts: Wainamoinen, I. A sentence of «The Sampo: A Wonder Tale of the Old North» by James Baldwin, The Tempest, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Sampo: A Wonder Tale of the Old North, The Tempest, sentence 66

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He is old, he is cunning, he has outwitted me; shall I do the thing which he sent me to perform?”

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**Who acts:** Wainamoinen, I · **What happens:** be, cunn, outwit, do, send, perform · **To what, where:** me, thing

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This is a sentence of «The Sampo: A Wonder Tale of the Old North» by James Baldwin, The Tempest. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Wainamoinen, I), 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:pg66819:8:66
# text = He is old, he is cunning, he has outwitted me; shall I do the thing which he sent me to perform?”
1	He	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	3	nsubj	_	_
2	is	be	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	3	cop	_	_
3	old	old	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
4	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	7	punct	_	_
5	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	7	nsubj	_	_
6	is	be	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	7	aux	_	_
7	cunning	cunn	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	3	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	11	punct	_	_
9	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	11	nsubj	_	_
10	has	have	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	11	aux	_	_
11	outwitted	outwit	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part	3	conj	_	_
12	me	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	11	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	;	;	PUNCT	,	_	16	punct	_	_
14	shall	shall	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	16	aux	_	_
15	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	16	nsubj	_	_
16	do	do	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	3	parataxis	_	_
17	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	18	det	_	_
18	thing	thing	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	16	obj	_	_
19	which	which	PRON	WDT	PronType=Rel	21	obj	_	_
20	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	21	nsubj	_	_
21	sent	send	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	18	acl:relcl	_	_
22	me	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	21	obj	_	_
23	to	to	PART	TO	_	24	mark	_	_
24	perform	perform	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	21	advcl	_	SpaceAfter=No
25	?	?	PUNCT	.	_	16	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
26	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is** | present | Wainamoinen |  |  |  |  | old *property* | tree rules |
| 2 | **cunn** | present · progressive | Wainamoinen |  |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 3 | **outwit** | present · perfect | Wainamoinen | me |  |  |  |  | vn exceed-90 «NP V NP»: agent=Pivot i=Theme |
| 4 | **do** | shall | I | the thing |  |  |  |  | vn act-114-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent thing=Eventuality |
| 5 | **send** | past | Wainamoinen | the thing |  |  |  | me *obj* | vn send-11.1-1 «NP V NP-Dative NP»: agent=Agent which=Destination i=Theme |
| 6 | **perform** | to-infinitive | Wainamoinen *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn performance-26.7 «NP V»: 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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