The Sampo: A Wonder Tale of the Old North, The Unfinished Boat, sentence 126
And the little ripples on the beach laughed at him, and the sea birds flapped their wings in his face, and he felt himself to be helpless.
Who acts: little ripples, sea birds, plan · What happens: laugh, flap, feel, be · To what, where: wings, plan
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 (little ripples, sea birds, plan), 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 | _ | 8 laughed | cc |
| 2 | the | the | DET | Definite=Def PronType=Art | 4 ripples | det |
| 3 | little | little | ADJ | Degree=Pos | 4 ripples | amod |
| 4 | ripples | ripple | NOUN | Number=Plur | 8 laughed | nsubj |
| 5 | on | on | ADP | _ | 7 beach | case |
| 6 | the | the | DET | Definite=Def PronType=Art | 7 beach | det |
| 7 | beach | beach | NOUN | Number=Sing | 4 ripples | nmod |
| 8 | laughed | laugh | VERB | Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | root | root |
| 9 | at | at | ADP | _ | 10 him | case |
| 10 | him | he | PRON | Case=Acc Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs | 8 laughed | obl |
| 11 | , | , | PUNCT | _ | 16 flapped | punct |
| 12 | and | and | CCONJ | _ | 16 flapped | cc |
| 13 | the | the | DET | Definite=Def PronType=Art | 15 birds | det |
| 14 | sea | sea | NOUN | Number=Sing | 15 birds | compound |
| 15 | birds | bird | NOUN | Number=Plur | 16 flapped | nsubj |
| 16 | flapped | flap | VERB | Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | 8 laughed | conj |
| 17 | their | their | PRON | Case=Gen Number=Plur Person=3 Poss=Yes PronType=Prs | 18 wings | nmod:poss |
| 18 | wings | wing | NOUN | Number=Plur | 16 flapped | obj |
| 19 | in | in | ADP | _ | 21 face | case |
| 20 | his | his | PRON | Case=Gen Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 Poss=Yes PronType=Prs | 21 face | nmod:poss |
| 21 | face | face | NOUN | Number=Sing | 16 flapped | obl |
| 22 | , | , | PUNCT | _ | 25 felt | punct |
| 23 | and | and | CCONJ | _ | 25 felt | cc |
| 24 | he | he | PRON | Case=Nom Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs | 25 felt | nsubj |
| 25 | felt | feel | VERB | Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | 8 laughed | conj |
| 26 | himself | himself | PRON | Case=Acc Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs Reflex=Yes | 25 felt | obj |
| 27 | to | to | PART | _ | 29 helpless | mark |
| 28 | be | be | AUX | VerbForm=Inf | 29 helpless | cop |
| 29 | helpless | helpless | ADJ | Degree=Pos | 25 felt | advcl |
| 30 | . | . | PUNCT | _ | 8 laughed | punct |
Pragmatics
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | laugh | past | the little ripples on the beach | at plan | vn nonverbal_expression-40.2 «NP V»: agent=Agent | ||||
| 2 | flap | past | the sea birds | birds's wings | in plan's face | vn crane-40.3.2 «NP V NP PP.recipient PP.theme»: agent=Agent wing=Patient in face=Topic | |||
| 3 | feel | past | plan | plan | vn hunt-35.1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent himself=Theme | ||||
| 4 | is | to-infinitive | plan not said here | helpless property | tree rules |
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/pg66819/13/126/