---
title: Never could I have believed that your magic power was so much greate… — The Sampo: A Wonder Tale of the Old North · tree and pragmatics
description: Never could I have believed that your magic power was so much greater than my own. Who acts: I, magic power. A sentence of «The Sampo: A Wonder Tale of the Old North» by James Baldwin, The Recipe, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Sampo: A Wonder Tale of the Old North, The Recipe, sentence 13

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Never could I have believed that your magic power was so much greater than my own.

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**Who acts:** I, magic power · **What happens:** not believe, be

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This is a sentence of «The Sampo: A Wonder Tale of the Old North» by James Baldwin, The Recipe. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (I, magic power), 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:pg66819:9:13
# text = Never could I have believed that your magic power was so much greater than my own.
1	Never	never	ADV	RB	PronType=Neg	5	advmod	_	_
2	could	could	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	5	aux	_	_
3	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	5	nsubj	_	_
4	have	have	AUX	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	5	aux	_	_
5	believed	believe	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part	0	root	_	_
6	that	that	SCONJ	IN	_	13	mark	_	_
7	your	your	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Person=2|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	9	nmod:poss	_	_
8	magic	magic	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	9	compound	_	_
9	power	power	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	13	nsubj	_	_
10	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	13	cop	_	_
11	so	so	ADV	RB	_	12	advmod	_	_
12	much	much	ADV	RB	_	13	advmod	_	_
13	greater	great	ADJ	JJR	Degree=Cmp	5	xcomp	_	_
14	than	than	ADP	IN	_	16	case	_	_
15	my	my	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Sing|Person=1|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	16	nmod:poss	_	_
16	own	own	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	13	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	5	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **not** **believe** | could · perfect | I |  |  |  |  |  | vn admire-31.2 «NP V that S»: agent=Experiencer |
| 2 | **is** | past | your magic power |  |  |  |  | than my own; great *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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