---
title: The Minstrel, still singing and still reciting his magic spells, had… — The Sampo: A Wonder Tale of the Old North · tree and pragmatics
description: The Minstrel, still singing and still reciting his magic spells, had already climbed upon the deck. Who acts: Minstrel. A sentence of «The Sampo: A Wonder Tale of the Old North» by James Baldwin, The Launching, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Sampo: A Wonder Tale of the Old North, The Launching, sentence 40

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The Minstrel, still singing and still reciting his magic spells, had already climbed upon the deck.

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**Who acts:** Minstrel · **What happens:** sing, recite, spell, climb · **To what, where:** magic, deck

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This is a sentence of «The Sampo: A Wonder Tale of the Old North» by James Baldwin, The Launching. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Minstrel), 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:pg66819:18:40
# text = The Minstrel, still singing and still reciting his magic spells, had already climbed upon the deck.
1	The	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	2	det	_	_
2	Minstrel	Minstrel	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	11	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
3	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	5	punct	_	_
4	still	still	ADV	RB	_	5	advmod	_	_
5	singing	sing	VERB	VBG	VerbForm=Ger	2	acl	_	_
6	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	8	cc	_	_
7	still	still	ADV	RB	_	8	advmod	_	_
8	reciting	recite	VERB	VBG	VerbForm=Ger	5	conj	_	_
9	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	10	nmod:poss	_	_
10	magic	magic	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	8	obj	_	_
11	spells	spell	VERB	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	15	punct	_	_
13	had	have	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	15	aux	_	_
14	already	already	ADV	RB	_	15	advmod	_	_
15	climbed	climb	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part	11	ccomp	_	_
16	upon	upon	ADP	IN	_	18	case	_	_
17	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	18	det	_	_
18	deck	deck	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	15	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
19	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	11	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **sing** *speech: express* | gerund | the Minstrel *not said here* |  |  |  | still |  | vn sound\_emission-43.2 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 2 | **recite** | gerund | the Minstrel *not said here* | Minstrel's magic |  |  | still |  | vn performance-26.7-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent magic=Theme |
| 3 | **spell** | present | the Minstrel |  |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 4 | **climb** | past · perfect | the Minstrel *not said here* |  |  | the deck |  |  | vn run-51.3.2 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Theme upon deck=Trajectory |

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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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