The Sampo: A Wonder Tale of the Old North, The Unfinished Boat, sentence 87
Its branches reached out on every side nine fathoms from the trunk, and its topmost twigs seemed to brush the sky.
Who acts: topmost twigs · What happens: reach out, seem, brush · To what, where: branches, side, sky
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 (topmost twigs), 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 | Its | its | PRON | Case=Gen Gender=Neut Number=Sing Person=3 Poss=Yes PronType=Prs | 2 branches | nmod:poss |
| 2 | branches | branch | NOUN | Number=Plur | 3 reached | nsubj:pass |
| 3 | reached | reach | VERB | Tense=Past VerbForm=Part Voice=Pass | root | root |
| 4 | out | out | ADP | _ | 3 reached | compound:prt |
| 5 | on | on | ADP | _ | 7 side | case |
| 6 | every | every | DET | PronType=Tot | 7 side | det |
| 7 | side | side | NOUN | Number=Sing | 3 reached | obl |
| 8 | nine | nine | NUM | NumForm=Word NumType=Card | 9 fathoms | nummod |
| 9 | fathoms | fathom | NOUN | Number=Plur | 7 side | nmod |
| 10 | from | from | ADP | _ | 12 trunk | case |
| 11 | the | the | DET | Definite=Def PronType=Art | 12 trunk | det |
| 12 | trunk | trunk | NOUN | Number=Sing | 9 fathoms | nmod |
| 13 | , | , | PUNCT | _ | 18 seemed | punct |
| 14 | and | and | CCONJ | _ | 18 seemed | cc |
| 15 | its | its | PRON | Case=Gen Gender=Neut Number=Sing Person=3 Poss=Yes PronType=Prs | 17 twigs | nmod:poss |
| 16 | topmost | topmost | ADJ | Degree=Pos | 17 twigs | amod |
| 17 | twigs | twig | NOUN | Number=Plur | 18 seemed | nsubj |
| 18 | seemed | seem | VERB | Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | 3 reached | parataxis |
| 19 | to | to | PART | _ | 20 brush | mark |
| 20 | brush | brush | VERB | VerbForm=Inf | 18 seemed | xcomp |
| 21 | the | the | DET | Definite=Def PronType=Art | 22 sky | det |
| 22 | sky | sky | NOUN | Number=Sing | 20 brush | obj |
| 23 | . | . | PUNCT | _ | 3 reached | punct |
Pragmatics
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | reach out | participle · passive | monarch's branches | every side nine fathoms from the trunk | vn body_motion-49.2-1-1 «NP V NP ADV»: subject=Theme | ||||
| 2 | seem | past | monarch's topmost twigs | vn seem-109-1-1-1 «NP V S_INF»: agent=Theme clause=Attribute | |||||
| 3 | brush | to-infinitive | monarch's topmost twigs not said here | the sky | vn spray-9.7-1 «NP V NP.theme»: agent=Agent sky=Theme |
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/pg66819/13/87/