---
title: On the ground far below him, the Minstrel was working his spells of… — The Sampo: A Wonder Tale of the Old North · tree and pragmatics
description: On the ground far below him, the Minstrel was working his spells of magic. Who acts: Minstrel, tree. A sentence of «The Sampo: A Wonder Tale of the Old North» by James Baldwin, The Tempest, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Sampo: A Wonder Tale of the Old North, The Tempest, sentence 17

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On the ground far below him, the Minstrel was working his spells of magic.

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**Who acts:** Minstrel, tree · **What happens:** work, spell · **To what, where:** spells, ground, magic

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This is a sentence of «The Sampo: A Wonder Tale of the Old North» by James Baldwin, The Tempest. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Minstrel, tree), 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:pg66819:8:17
# text = On the ground far below him, the Minstrel was working his spells of magic.
1	On	on	ADP	IN	_	3	case	_	_
2	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	3	det	_	_
3	ground	ground	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	11	obl	_	_
4	far	far	ADV	RB	Degree=Pos	3	advmod	_	_
5	below	below	ADP	IN	_	6	case	_	_
6	him	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	4	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	3	punct	_	_
8	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	9	det	_	_
9	Minstrel	Minstrel	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	11	nsubj	_	_
10	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	11	aux	_	_
11	working	work	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	0	root	_	_
12	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	13	nmod:poss	_	_
13	spells	spell	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	11	obj	_	_
14	of	of	ADP	IN	_	15	case	_	_
15	magic	magic	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	13	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	11	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **work** | past · progressive | the Minstrel | tree's spells of magic |  | the ground |  |  | vn knead-26.5 «NP V NP.material»: agent=Agent spell=Material |
| 2 | **spell** |  | tree | magic |  |  |  |  | nom spell «state transitive»: poss=agent of=patient |

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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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