The Sampo: A Wonder Tale of the Old North, The Caldron, sentence 141
And he repeated to himself his favorite saying: “None but cowards say, ‘I cannot,’ none but weaklings say, ‘Impossible,’ none but women weep for failure.”
Who acts: head, None · What happens: repeat, say, ', weep · To what, where: favorite saying, head · Speech: someone speaks here
This is a sentence of «The Sampo: A Wonder Tale of the Old North» by James Baldwin, The Caldron. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (head, None), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.
Mova's own parse. This tree may be wrong.
The tree
The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)
| # | word | lemma | UPOS | features | head | relation |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | And | and | CCONJ | _ | 3 repeated | cc |
| 2 | he | he | PRON | Case=Nom Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs | 3 repeated | nsubj |
| 3 | repeated | repeat | VERB | Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | root | root |
| 4 | to | to | ADP | _ | 5 himself | case |
| 5 | himself | himself | PRON | Case=Acc Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs Reflex=Yes | 3 repeated | obl |
| 6 | his | his | PRON | Case=Gen Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 Poss=Yes PronType=Prs | 8 saying | nmod:poss |
| 7 | favorite | favorite | ADJ | Degree=Pos | 8 saying | amod |
| 8 | saying | saying | NOUN | Number=Sing | 3 repeated | obj |
| 9 | : | : | PUNCT | _ | 14 say | punct |
| 10 | “ | " | PUNCT | _ | 14 say | punct |
| 11 | None | none | PRON | PronType=Neg | 14 say | nsubj |
| 12 | but | but | CCONJ | _ | 13 cowards | cc |
| 13 | cowards | coward | NOUN | Number=Plur | 11 None | conj |
| 14 | say | say | VERB | Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin | 3 repeated | conj |
| 15 | , | , | PUNCT | _ | 21 ’ | punct |
| 16 | ‘ | ' | PUNCT | _ | 21 ’ | punct |
| 17 | I | I | PRON | Case=Nom Number=Sing Person=1 PronType=Prs | 18 can | nsubj |
| 18 | can | can | AUX | VerbForm=Fin | 21 ’ | aux |
| 19 | not | not | PART | Polarity=Neg | 18 can | advmod |
| 20 | , | , | PUNCT | _ | 21 ’ | punct |
| 21 | ’ | ' | VERB | VerbForm=Inf | 14 say | ccomp |
| 22 | none | none | PRON | PronType=Neg | 25 say | nsubj |
| 23 | but | but | CCONJ | _ | 24 weaklings | cc |
| 24 | weaklings | weakling | NOUN | Number=Plur | 22 none | conj |
| 25 | say | say | VERB | Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin | 21 ’ | ccomp |
| 26 | , | , | PUNCT | _ | 28 Impossible | punct |
| 27 | ‘ | ' | PUNCT | _ | 28 Impossible | punct |
| 28 | Impossible | impossible | ADJ | Degree=Pos | 25 say | ccomp |
| 29 | , | , | PUNCT | _ | 28 Impossible | punct |
| 30 | ’ | ' | PUNCT | _ | 28 Impossible | punct |
| 31 | none | none | PRON | PronType=Neg | 34 weep | nsubj |
| 32 | but | but | CCONJ | _ | 33 women | cc |
| 33 | women | woman | NOUN | Number=Plur | 31 none | conj |
| 34 | weep | weep | VERB | Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin | 28 Impossible | parataxis |
| 35 | for | for | ADP | _ | 36 failure | case |
| 36 | failure | failure | NOUN | Number=Sing | 34 weep | obl |
| 37 | . | . | PUNCT | _ | 3 repeated | punct |
| 38 | ” | " | PUNCT | _ | 3 repeated | punct |
Pragmatics
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | repeat | past | head | head's favorite saying | head | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V NP PP.recipient»: agent=Agent saying=Topic to himself=Recipient | |||
| 2 | say speech: assert in a quote | present | None cowards | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent clause=Topic | |||||
| 3 | ' in a quote | can | tree rules | ||||||
| 4 | say speech: assert in a quote | present | none weaklings | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent | |||||
| 5 | weep in a quote | present | none women | for failure | vn breathe-40.1.2 «NP V»: agent=Agent | ||||
| 6 | say | head | nom saying «communication transitive»: poss=agent |
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: «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.
This page in Markdown → https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg66819/10/141/