---
title: “Nothing is easier to one skilled in magic,” answered the hero. — The Sampo: A Wonder Tale of the Old North · tree and pragmatics
description: “Nothing is easier to one skilled in magic,” answered the hero. Who acts: Nothing, hero. A sentence of «The Sampo: A Wonder Tale of the Old North» by James Baldwin, The Maid of Beauty, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Sampo: A Wonder Tale of the Old North, The Maid of Beauty, sentence 54

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“Nothing is easier to one skilled in magic,” answered the hero.

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**Who acts:** Nothing, hero · **What happens:** be, skill, answer · **To what, where:** one, magic · **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 Maid of Beauty. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Nothing, hero), 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:pg66819:3:54
# text = “Nothing is easier to one skilled in magic,” answered the hero.
1	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	4	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	Nothing	nothing	PRON	NN	Number=Sing|PronType=Neg	4	nsubj	_	_
3	is	be	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	4	cop	_	_
4	easier	easy	ADJ	JJR	Degree=Cmp	0	root	_	_
5	to	to	ADP	IN	_	6	case	_	_
6	one	one	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	4	obl	_	_
7	skilled	skill	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	6	acl	_	_
8	in	in	ADP	IN	_	9	case	_	_
9	magic	magic	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	4	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	4	punct	_	_
12	answered	answer	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	4	conj	_	_
13	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	14	det	_	_
14	hero	hero	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	12	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is** *in a quote* | present | Nothing |  | one |  |  | easy *property* | tree rules |
| 2 | **skill** *in a quote* | participle |  |  |  | magic |  |  | tree rules |
| 3 | **answer** *speech: assert* | past | the hero |  |  |  |  |  | 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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