---
title: Is the road thither a long one? — The Sampo: A Wonder Tale of the Old North · tree and pragmatics
description: Is the road thither a long one? Who acts: road. A sentence of «The Sampo: A Wonder Tale of the Old North» by James Baldwin, The Land of Tuonela, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Sampo: A Wonder Tale of the Old North, The Land of Tuonela, sentence 9

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Is the road thither a long one?

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**Who acts:** road · **What happens:** be · **To what, where:** long one

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This is a sentence of «The Sampo: A Wonder Tale of the Old North» by James Baldwin, The Land of Tuonela. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (road), 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:pg66819:14:9
# text = Is the road thither a long one?
1	Is	be	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	7	cop	_	_
2	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	3	det	_	_
3	road	road	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	nsubj	_	_
4	thither	thither	ADV	RB	_	7	advmod	_	_
5	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	7	det	_	_
6	long	long	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	7	amod	_	_
7	one	one	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	?	?	PUNCT	.	_	7	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is a** | present | the road | a long one |  |  |  | thither *property* | 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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