The Sampo: A Wonder Tale of the Old North, The Unfinished Boat, sentence 64
The aspen groaned, and every one of its thousand leaves seemed to have a tongue as it softly murmured: “Surely, I am not fit for boat timber.
Who acts: aspen, one, friend · What happens: groan, seem, have, murmur, not be · To what, where: tongue · Speech: someone speaks here
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 (aspen, one, friend), 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 aspen | det |
| 2 | aspen | aspen | NOUN | Number=Sing | 3 groaned | nsubj |
| 3 | groaned | groan | VERB | Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | root | root |
| 4 | , | , | PUNCT | _ | 12 seemed | punct |
| 5 | and | and | CCONJ | _ | 12 seemed | cc |
| 6 | every | every | DET | PronType=Tot | 7 one | det |
| 7 | one | one | NOUN | Number=Sing | 12 seemed | nsubj |
| 8 | of | of | ADP | _ | 11 leaves | case |
| 9 | its | its | PRON | Case=Gen Gender=Neut Number=Sing Person=3 Poss=Yes PronType=Prs | 11 leaves | nmod:poss |
| 10 | thousand | thousand | NUM | NumForm=Word NumType=Card | 11 leaves | nummod |
| 11 | leaves | leaf | NOUN | Number=Plur | 7 one | nmod |
| 12 | seemed | seem | VERB | Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | 3 groaned | ccomp |
| 13 | to | to | PART | _ | 14 have | mark |
| 14 | have | have | VERB | VerbForm=Inf | 12 seemed | xcomp |
| 15 | a | a | DET | Definite=Ind PronType=Art | 16 tongue | det |
| 16 | tongue | tongue | NOUN | Number=Sing | 14 have | obj |
| 17 | as | as | SCONJ | _ | 20 murmured | mark |
| 18 | it | it | PRON | Case=Nom Gender=Neut Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs | 20 murmured | nsubj |
| 19 | softly | softly | ADV | _ | 20 murmured | advmod |
| 20 | murmured | murmur | VERB | Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | 14 have | advcl |
| 21 | : | : | PUNCT | _ | 28 fit | punct |
| 22 | “ | " | PUNCT | _ | 28 fit | punct |
| 23 | Surely | surely | ADV | _ | 28 fit | advmod |
| 24 | , | , | PUNCT | _ | 23 Surely | punct |
| 25 | I | I | PRON | Case=Nom Number=Sing Person=1 PronType=Prs | 28 fit | nsubj |
| 26 | am | be | AUX | Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=1 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin | 28 fit | cop |
| 27 | not | not | PART | Polarity=Neg | 28 fit | advmod |
| 28 | fit | fit | ADJ | Degree=Pos | 12 seemed | advcl |
| 29 | for | for | ADP | _ | 31 timber | case |
| 30 | boat | boat | NOUN | Number=Sing | 31 timber | compound |
| 31 | timber | timber | NOUN | Number=Sing | 28 fit | obl |
| 32 | . | . | PUNCT | _ | 3 groaned | punct |
Pragmatics
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | groan | past | the aspen | vn manner_speaking-37.3 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent clause=Topic | |||||
| 2 | seem | past | every one of friend's thousand leaves | vn seem-109-1-1-1 «NP V S_INF»: agent=Theme clause=Attribute | |||||
| 3 | have | to-infinitive | every one of friend's thousand leaves not said here | a tongue | vn birth-28.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent tongue=Patient | ||||
| 4 | murmur speech: other | past | friend | softly property | vn manner_speaking-37.3 «NP V»: agent=Agent | ||||
| 5 | not is in a quote | present | friend | for boat timber; fit, surely 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/pg66819/13/64/