The Sampo: A Wonder Tale of the Old North, The Forging of the Sampo, sentence 63
She tried to express her feelings in words, but her voice was cracked and broken, and her speech sounded like the yelping of a gray wolf in the frozen marshes.
Who acts: face, speech, gray wolf · What happens: try, express, crack, break, sound, freeze · To what, where: feelings, words, voice, frozen marshes · Speech: someone speaks here
This is a sentence of «The Sampo: A Wonder Tale of the Old North» by James Baldwin, The Forging of the Sampo. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (face, speech, gray wolf), 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 | She | she | PRON | Case=Nom Gender=Fem Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs | 2 tried | nsubj |
| 2 | tried | try | VERB | Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | root | root |
| 3 | to | to | PART | _ | 4 express | mark |
| 4 | express | express | VERB | VerbForm=Inf | 2 tried | xcomp |
| 5 | her | her | PRON | Case=Gen Gender=Fem Number=Sing Person=3 Poss=Yes PronType=Prs | 6 feelings | nmod:poss |
| 6 | feelings | feeling | NOUN | Number=Plur | 4 express | obj |
| 7 | in | in | ADP | _ | 8 words | case |
| 8 | words | word | NOUN | Number=Plur | 4 express | obl |
| 9 | , | , | PUNCT | _ | 14 cracked | punct |
| 10 | but | but | CCONJ | _ | 14 cracked | cc |
| 11 | her | her | PRON | Case=Gen Gender=Fem Number=Sing Person=3 Poss=Yes PronType=Prs | 12 voice | nmod:poss |
| 12 | voice | voice | NOUN | Number=Sing | 14 cracked | nsubj:pass |
| 13 | was | be | AUX | Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | 14 cracked | aux:pass |
| 14 | cracked | crack | VERB | Tense=Past VerbForm=Part Voice=Pass | 2 tried | parataxis |
| 15 | and | and | CCONJ | _ | 16 broken | cc |
| 16 | broken | break | VERB | Tense=Past VerbForm=Part Voice=Pass | 14 cracked | conj |
| 17 | , | , | PUNCT | _ | 21 sounded | punct |
| 18 | and | and | CCONJ | _ | 21 sounded | cc |
| 19 | her | her | PRON | Case=Gen Gender=Fem Number=Sing Person=3 Poss=Yes PronType=Prs | 20 speech | nmod:poss |
| 20 | speech | speech | NOUN | Number=Sing | 21 sounded | nsubj |
| 21 | sounded | sound | VERB | Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | 2 tried | parataxis |
| 22 | like | like | ADP | _ | 24 yelping | case |
| 23 | the | the | DET | Definite=Def PronType=Art | 24 yelping | det |
| 24 | yelping | yelping | NOUN | Number=Sing | 21 sounded | obl |
| 25 | of | of | ADP | _ | 28 wolf | case |
| 26 | a | a | DET | Definite=Ind PronType=Art | 28 wolf | det |
| 27 | gray | gray | ADJ | Degree=Pos | 28 wolf | amod |
| 28 | wolf | wolf | NOUN | Number=Sing | 24 yelping | nmod |
| 29 | in | in | ADP | _ | 32 marshes | case |
| 30 | the | the | DET | Definite=Def PronType=Art | 32 marshes | det |
| 31 | frozen | freeze | VERB | Tense=Past VerbForm=Part Voice=Pass | 32 marshes | amod |
| 32 | marshes | marsh | NOUN | Number=Plur | 21 sounded | obl |
| 33 | . | . | PUNCT | _ | 2 tried | punct |
Pragmatics
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | try | past | face | vn try-61.1 «NP V S_INF»: agent=Agent clause=Eventuality | |||||
| 2 | express not said to happen | to-infinitive | face not said here | face's feelings | words | vn reflexive_appearance-48.1.2 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent feeling=Theme | |||
| 3 | crack | past · passive | face's voice | vn sound_emission-43.2 «PP.location V NP»: subject=Theme | |||||
| 4 | break | participle | vn hurt-40.8.3-1-1 «NP V»: agent=Patient | ||||||
| 5 | sound | past | face's speech | the frozen marshes | like the yelping of a gray wolf | vn sound_emission-43.2 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Theme in marsh=Location | |||
| 6 | freeze | participle | vn other_cos-45.4-1 «NP.patient V»: agent=Patient | ||||||
| 7 | speak | face | nom speech «communication transitive»: poss=agent | ||||||
| 8 | yelp | a gray wolf | nom yelping «event intransitive»: of=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/pg66819/11/63/