---
title: “Is it by some power of magic that this is so? — The Sampo: A Wonder Tale of the Old North · tree and pragmatics
description: “Is it by some power of magic that this is so? Who acts: this. A sentence of «The Sampo: A Wonder Tale of the Old North» by James Baldwin, The Famine, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Sampo: A Wonder Tale of the Old North, The Famine, sentence 49

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“Is it by some power of magic that this is so?

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**Who acts:** this · **What happens:** be

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This is a sentence of «The Sampo: A Wonder Tale of the Old North» by James Baldwin, The Famine. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (this), 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:pg66819:32:49
# text = “Is it by some power of magic that this is so?
1	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	6	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	Is	be	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	6	cop	_	_
3	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	2	nsubj	_	_
4	by	by	ADP	IN	_	6	case	_	_
5	some	some	DET	DT	PronType=Ind	6	det	_	_
6	power	power	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	0	root	_	_
7	of	of	ADP	IN	_	8	case	_	_
8	magic	magic	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	nmod	_	_
9	that	that	SCONJ	IN	_	12	mark	_	_
10	this	this	PRON	DT	Number=Sing|PronType=Dem	12	nsubj	_	_
11	is	be	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	12	cop	_	_
12	so	so	ADV	RB	_	6	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	?	?	PUNCT	.	_	6	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 |  |  |  |  |  | by some power; of magic | tree rules |
| 2 | **is** *in a quote* | present | this |  |  |  |  | so *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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