---
title: “Well, I have done greater things than that,” he answered boastingly. — The Sampo: A Wonder Tale of the Old North · tree and pragmatics
description: “Well, I have done greater things than that,” he answered boastingly. Who acts: various. A sentence of «The Sampo: A Wonder Tale of the Old North» by James Baldwin, The Recipe, 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/pg66819/9/39/)

<!-- 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 Recipe](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg66819/9/) / 39

# The Sampo: A Wonder Tale of the Old North, The Recipe, sentence 39

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
“Well, I have done greater things than that,” he answered boastingly.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** various · **What happens:** do, answer · **To what, where:** greater things · **Speech:** someone speaks here

<!-- .vabout -->
This is a sentence of «The Sampo: A Wonder Tale of the Old North» by James Baldwin, The Recipe. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (various), 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:pg66819:9:39
# text = “Well, I have done greater things than that,” he answered boastingly.
1	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	6	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	Well	well	INTJ	UH	_	6	discourse	_	SpaceAfter=No
3	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	2	punct	_	_
4	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	6	nsubj	_	_
5	have	have	AUX	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	6	aux	_	_
6	done	do	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part	0	root	_	_
7	greater	great	ADJ	JJR	Degree=Cmp	8	amod	_	_
8	things	thing	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	6	obj	_	_
9	than	than	ADP	IN	_	10	case	_	_
10	that	that	PRON	DT	Number=Sing|PronType=Dem	8	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	6	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	6	punct	_	_
13	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	14	nsubj	_	_
14	answered	answer	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	6	parataxis	_	_
15	boastingly	boastingly	ADV	RB	_	14	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	6	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **do** *in a quote* | present · perfect | various | greater things |  |  |  | than that | tree rules |
| 2 | **answer** *speech: assert* | past | various |  |  |  |  | boastingly *property* | vn reciprocate-112-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent |

<!-- .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 38](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg66819/9/38/)
- next →: [sentence 40](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg66819/9/40/)
- ↑ back to [The Recipe](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg66819/9/)