The Sampo: A Wonder Tale of the Old North, The Unfinished Boat, sentence 118
The Minstrel stood aghast—without three words more his boat could not be launched; it could not be made water-tight; it would never skim the foam-capped waves of the northern seas.
Who acts: Minstrel, three words, spell · What happens: stand, not launch, not make, not skim, cap, wave · To what, where: boat, spell, capped waves, northern seas
This is a sentence of «The Sampo: A Wonder Tale of the Old North» by James Baldwin, The Unfinished Boat. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Minstrel, three words, spell), 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 | The | the | DET | Definite=Def PronType=Art | 2 Minstrel | det |
| 2 | Minstrel | Minstrel | PROPN | Number=Sing | 3 stood | nsubj |
| 3 | stood | stand | VERB | Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | root | root |
| 4 | aghast | aghast | ADJ | Degree=Pos | 3 stood | xcomp |
| 5 | — | - | PUNCT | _ | 3 stood | punct |
| 6 | without | without | ADP | _ | 8 words | case |
| 7 | three | three | NUM | NumForm=Word NumType=Card | 8 words | nummod |
| 8 | words | word | NOUN | Number=Plur | 3 stood | obl |
| 9 | more | more | ADV | Degree=Cmp | 15 launched | advmod |
| 10 | his | his | PRON | Case=Gen Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 Poss=Yes PronType=Prs | 11 boat | nmod:poss |
| 11 | boat | boat | NOUN | Number=Sing | 15 launched | nsubj:pass |
| 12 | could | could | AUX | VerbForm=Fin | 15 launched | aux |
| 13 | not | not | PART | Polarity=Neg | 15 launched | advmod |
| 14 | be | be | AUX | VerbForm=Inf | 15 launched | aux:pass |
| 15 | launched | launch | VERB | Tense=Past VerbForm=Part Voice=Pass | 8 words | acl:relcl |
| 16 | ; | ; | PUNCT | _ | 21 made | punct |
| 17 | it | it | PRON | Case=Nom Gender=Neut Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs | 21 made | nsubj:pass |
| 18 | could | could | AUX | VerbForm=Fin | 21 made | aux |
| 19 | not | not | PART | Polarity=Neg | 21 made | advmod |
| 20 | be | be | AUX | VerbForm=Inf | 21 made | aux:pass |
| 21 | made | make | VERB | Tense=Past VerbForm=Part Voice=Pass | 3 stood | parataxis |
| 22 | water | water | NOUN | Number=Sing | 24 tight | compound |
| 23 | - | - | PUNCT | _ | 22 water | punct |
| 24 | tight | tight | ADJ | Degree=Pos | 21 made | xcomp |
| 25 | ; | ; | PUNCT | _ | 29 skim | punct |
| 26 | it | it | PRON | Case=Nom Gender=Neut Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs | 29 skim | nsubj |
| 27 | would | would | AUX | VerbForm=Fin | 29 skim | aux |
| 28 | never | never | ADV | PronType=Neg | 29 skim | advmod |
| 29 | skim | skim | VERB | VerbForm=Inf | 3 stood | parataxis |
| 30 | the | the | DET | Definite=Def PronType=Art | 34 waves | det |
| 31 | foam | foam | NOUN | Number=Sing | 33 capped | compound |
| 32 | - | - | PUNCT | _ | 31 foam | punct |
| 33 | capped | cap | VERB | Tense=Past VerbForm=Part Voice=Pass | 34 waves | amod |
| 34 | waves | wave | NOUN | Number=Plur | 29 skim | obj |
| 35 | of | of | ADP | _ | 38 seas | case |
| 36 | the | the | DET | Definite=Def PronType=Art | 38 seas | det |
| 37 | northern | northern | ADJ | Degree=Pos | 38 seas | amod |
| 38 | seas | sea | NOUN | Number=Plur | 34 waves | nmod |
| 39 | . | . | PUNCT | _ | 3 stood | punct |
Pragmatics
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | stand | past | the Minstrel | without three words; aghast property | vn assuming_position-50 «NP V»: agent=Agent | ||||
| 2 | not launch | could · passive | three words not said here | vessel's boat | vn throw-17.1-1-1 «NP V NP»: subject=Theme | ||||
| 3 | not make | could · passive | spell | tight property | vn build-26.1-1 «NP.asset V NP»: subject=Product | ||||
| 4 | not skim | would | spell | the capped waves of the northern seas | vn wipe_manner-10.4.1 «NP V NP.source»: agent=Agent wave=Source | ||||
| 5 | cap | participle | foam compound | vn butter-9.9 «NP V NP.destination»: agent=Agent | |||||
| 6 | wave | the northern seas | nom wave «event transitive»: of=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: «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/pg66819/13/118/