---
title: “Truly, I have performed harder tasks,” answered the boaster. — The Sampo: A Wonder Tale of the Old North · tree and pragmatics
description: “Truly, I have performed harder tasks,” answered the boaster. Who acts: boaster. 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.
---

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# The Sampo: A Wonder Tale of the Old North, The Recipe, sentence 45

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“Truly, I have performed harder tasks,” answered the boaster.

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**Who acts:** boaster · **What happens:** perform, answer · **To what, where:** harder tasks · **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 Recipe. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (boaster), 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:pg66819:9:45
# text = “Truly, I have performed harder tasks,” answered the boaster.
1	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	11	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	Truly	truly	ADV	RB	_	6	advmod	_	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	performed	perform	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part	11	advcl	_	_
7	harder	hard	ADJ	JJR	Degree=Cmp	8	amod	_	_
8	tasks	task	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	6	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	6	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	6	punct	_	_
11	answered	answer	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
12	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	13	det	_	_
13	boaster	boaster	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	11	obj	_	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 | **perform** *in a quote* | present · perfect | the boaster *= boaster* | harder tasks |  |  |  | truly *property* | vn performance-26.7 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent task=Theme |
| 2 | **answer** *speech: assert* | past | the boaster |  |  |  |  |  | vn reciprocate-112-1 «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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