The Sampo: A Wonder Tale of the Old North, The Homesick Hero, sentence 118
Scarcely had he walked half-way to the nearest dwelling, when a man stepped suddenly into the road before him.
Who acts: Scarcely, man · What happens: have, walk, step · To what, where: way, road
This is a sentence of «The Sampo: A Wonder Tale of the Old North» by James Baldwin, The Homesick Hero. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Scarcely, man), 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 | Scarcely | Scarcely | PROPN | Number=Sing | 2 had | nsubj |
| 2 | had | have | VERB | Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | root | root |
| 3 | he | he | PRON | Case=Nom Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs | 4 walked | nsubj |
| 4 | walked | walk | VERB | Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | 2 had | ccomp |
| 5 | half | half | ADV | NumForm=Word NumType=Frac | 7 way | advmod |
| 6 | - | - | PUNCT | _ | 5 half | punct |
| 7 | way | way | NOUN | Number=Sing | 4 walked | obl |
| 8 | to | to | ADP | _ | 11 dwelling | case |
| 9 | the | the | DET | Definite=Def PronType=Art | 11 dwelling | det |
| 10 | nearest | near | ADJ | Degree=Sup | 11 dwelling | amod |
| 11 | dwelling | dwelling | NOUN | Number=Sing | 7 way | nmod |
| 12 | , | , | PUNCT | _ | 16 stepped | punct |
| 13 | when | when | ADV | PronType=Int | 16 stepped | advmod |
| 14 | a | a | DET | Definite=Ind PronType=Art | 15 man | det |
| 15 | man | man | NOUN | Number=Sing | 16 stepped | nsubj |
| 16 | stepped | step | VERB | Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | 4 walked | conj |
| 17 | suddenly | suddenly | ADV | _ | 16 stepped | advmod |
| 18 | into | into | ADP | _ | 20 road | case |
| 19 | the | the | DET | Definite=Def PronType=Art | 20 road | det |
| 20 | road | road | NOUN | Number=Sing | 16 stepped | obl |
| 21 | before | before | ADP | _ | 22 him | case |
| 22 | him | he | PRON | Case=Acc Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs | 16 stepped | obl |
| 23 | . | . | PUNCT | _ | 2 had | punct |
Pragmatics
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | have | past | Scarcely | tree rules | |||||
| 2 | walk | past | Scarcely | way to the nearest dwelling | vn run-51.3.2-2-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme | ||||
| 3 | step | past | a man | the road | before Scarcely | suddenly property | vn run-51.3.2 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Theme into road=Destination |
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/pg66819/12/118/