The Sampo: A Wonder Tale of the Old North, The Unfinished Boat, sentence 43

Trees grew along the shore, and there were thousands of them covering the hillside; but they were small trees, mere saplings, and would be of little use in boat-building.

Who acts: Trees, thousands · What happens: grow, be, cover · To what, where: shore, hillside, small trees, boat building

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 (Trees, thousands), 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	Trees	tree	NOUN	Number=Plur	2 grew	nsubj
2	grew	grow	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	root	root
3	along	along	ADP	_	5 shore	case
4	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	5 shore	det
5	shore	shore	NOUN	Number=Sing	2 grew	obl
6	,	,	PUNCT	_	9 were	punct
7	and	and	CCONJ	_	9 were	cc
8	there	there	PRON	PronType=Dem	9 were	expl
9	were	be	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	2 grew	conj
10	thousands	thousand	NOUN	Number=Plur	9 were	nsubj
11	of	of	ADP	_	12 them	case
12	them	they	PRON	Case=Acc Number=Plur Person=3 PronType=Prs	10 thousands	nmod
13	covering	cover	VERB	VerbForm=Ger	10 thousands	acl
14	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	15 hillside	det
15	hillside	hillside	NOUN	Number=Sing	13 covering	obj
16	;	;	PUNCT	_	21 trees	punct
17	but	but	CCONJ	_	21 trees	cc
18	they	they	PRON	Case=Nom Number=Plur Person=3 PronType=Prs	21 trees	nsubj
19	were	be	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	21 trees	cop
20	small	small	ADJ	Degree=Pos	21 trees	amod
21	trees	tree	NOUN	Number=Plur	2 grew	obl
22	,	,	PUNCT	_	24 saplings	punct
23	mere	mere	ADJ	Degree=Pos	24 saplings	amod
24	saplings	sapling	NOUN	Number=Plur	21 trees	conj
25	,	,	PUNCT	_	31 use	punct
26	and	and	CCONJ	_	31 use	cc
27	would	would	AUX	VerbForm=Fin	31 use	aux
28	be	be	AUX	VerbForm=Inf	31 use	cop
29	of	of	ADP	_	31 use	case
30	little	little	ADJ	Degree=Pos	31 use	amod
31	use	use	NOUN	Number=Sing	2 grew	obl
32	in	in	ADP	_	35 building	case
33	boat	boat	NOUN	Number=Sing	35 building	compound
34	-	-	PUNCT	_	33 boat	punct
35	building	building	NOUN	Number=Sing	31 use	nmod
36	.	.	PUNCT	_	2 grew	punct

Pragmatics

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	where	other	roles by
1	grow	past	Trees		the shore		vn appear-48.1.1 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Theme along shore=Location
2	be	past	thousands of Trees		there		vn exist-47.1 «NP V»: agent=Theme
3	cover	gerund	thousands of Trees not said here	the hillside			vn fill-9.8-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Theme hillside=Destination
4	is a	past	thousands = thousand	small trees and mere saplings		mere saplings conj	tree rules
5	is	would			boat building	of little use	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/pg66819/13/43/

🌲 The Sampo: A Wonder Tale of the Old North, The Unfinished Boat, sentence 43

The tree

Pragmatics

The Sampo: A Wonder Tale of the Old North, The Unfinished Boat, sentence 43