Fifty Famous Stories Retold, King Canute on the Seashore., sentence 16
"Will the sea obey me?" he asked; and he looked down at the little waves which were lapping the sand at his feet.
Who acts: sea, little waves · What happens: obey, ask, look down, lap · To what, where: sea, sand, feet · Speech: someone speaks here
This is a sentence of «Fifty Famous Stories Retold» by James Baldwin, King Canute on the Seashore.. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (sea, little waves), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.
Parsed by Mova, not checked by a teacher. This tree is Mova's own parse (the en model, on the CPU, when the site is built); it may be wrong.
The tree
The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)
| # | word | lemma | UPOS | features | head | relation |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | " | " | PUNCT | _ | 5 obey | punct |
| 2 | Will | will | AUX | VerbForm=Fin | 5 obey | aux |
| 3 | the | the | DET | Definite=Def PronType=Art | 4 sea | det |
| 4 | sea | sea | NOUN | Number=Sing | 5 obey | nsubj |
| 5 | obey | obey | VERB | VerbForm=Inf | 10 asked | ccomp |
| 6 | me | I | PRON | Case=Acc Number=Sing Person=1 PronType=Prs | 5 obey | obj |
| 7 | ? | ? | PUNCT | _ | 5 obey | punct |
| 8 | " | " | PUNCT | _ | 5 obey | punct |
| 9 | he | he | PRON | Case=Nom Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs | 10 asked | nsubj |
| 10 | asked | ask | VERB | Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | root | root |
| 11 | ; | ; | PUNCT | _ | 14 looked | punct |
| 12 | and | and | CCONJ | _ | 14 looked | cc |
| 13 | he | he | PRON | Case=Nom Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs | 14 looked | nsubj |
| 14 | looked | look | VERB | Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | 10 asked | ccomp |
| 15 | down | down | ADP | _ | 14 looked | compound:prt |
| 16 | at | at | ADP | _ | 19 waves | case |
| 17 | the | the | DET | Definite=Def PronType=Art | 19 waves | det |
| 18 | little | little | ADJ | Degree=Pos | 19 waves | amod |
| 19 | waves | wave | NOUN | Number=Plur | 14 looked | obl |
| 20 | which | which | PRON | PronType=Rel | 22 lapping | nsubj |
| 21 | were | be | AUX | Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | 22 lapping | aux |
| 22 | lapping | lap | VERB | Tense=Pres VerbForm=Part | 19 waves | acl:relcl |
| 23 | the | the | DET | Definite=Def PronType=Art | 24 sand | det |
| 24 | sand | sand | NOUN | Number=Sing | 22 lapping | obj |
| 25 | at | at | ADP | _ | 27 feet | case |
| 26 | his | his | PRON | Case=Gen Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 Poss=Yes PronType=Prs | 27 feet | nmod:poss |
| 27 | feet | foot | NOUN | Number=Plur | 22 lapping | obl |
| 28 | . | . | PUNCT | _ | 10 asked | punct |
Pragmatics
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | obey in a quote | future | the sea | sea | vn abide_by-93.2 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent i=Theme | ||||
| 2 | ask speech: ask | past | sea | vn inquire-37.1.2 «NP V how S»: agent=Agent clause=Topic | |||||
| 3 | look down | past | sea | at the little waves | vn peer-30.3 «NP V PP.theme»: agent=Agent at wave=Theme | ||||
| 4 | lap | past · progressive | the little waves | the sand | sea's feet | vn chew-39.2 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent sand=Patient |
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.
Text: «Fifty Famous Stories Retold» by James Baldwin, Project Gutenberg book 18442 (public domain in the USA). Tree: Mova's own parse, Elamur Cosmic License. Frames: Mova's frames reader (prag), the chapter read in order.
This page in Markdown → https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg18442/5/16/