---
title: “The rowan branch is the sure omen that never fails. — The Sampo: A Wonder Tale of the Old North · tree and pragmatics
description: “The rowan branch is the sure omen that never fails. Who acts: rowan branch, sure omen. A sentence of «The Sampo: A Wonder Tale of the Old North» by James Baldwin, The Barking Dogs, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Sampo: A Wonder Tale of the Old North, The Barking Dogs, sentence 114

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“The rowan branch is the sure omen that never fails.

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**Who acts:** rowan branch, sure omen · **What happens:** be, not fail · **To what, where:** sure omen

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This is a sentence of «The Sampo: A Wonder Tale of the Old North» by James Baldwin, The Barking Dogs. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (rowan branch, sure omen), 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:pg66819:22:114
# text = “The rowan branch is the sure omen that never fails.
1	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	8	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	The	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	4	det	_	_
3	rowan	rowan	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	compound	_	_
4	branch	branch	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	8	nsubj	_	_
5	is	be	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	8	cop	_	_
6	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	8	det	_	_
7	sure	sure	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	8	amod	_	_
8	omen	omen	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	0	root	_	_
9	that	that	PRON	WDT	PronType=Rel	11	nsubj	_	_
10	never	never	ADV	RB	PronType=Neg	11	advmod	_	_
11	fails	fail	VERB	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	8	acl:relcl	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	8	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is a** *in a quote* | present | the rowan branch | the sure omen |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **not** **fail** *in a quote* | present | the sure omen |  |  |  |  |  | vn succeed-74-3-1-1 «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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- ← previous: [sentence 113](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg66819/22/113/)
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