The Sampo: A Wonder Tale of the Old North, The Hero’s Return, sentence 22
He could answer them not a word, so feeble had he become; his eyes grew suddenly dim, and he fainted away in their arms.
Who acts: stranger, eyes · What happens: not answer, become, grow, faint away · To what, where: word, Friend, arms
This is a sentence of «The Sampo: A Wonder Tale of the Old North» by James Baldwin, The Hero’s Return. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (stranger, eyes), 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 | He | he | PRON | Case=Nom Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs | 3 answer | nsubj |
| 2 | could | could | AUX | VerbForm=Fin | 3 answer | aux |
| 3 | answer | answer | VERB | VerbForm=Inf | root | root |
| 4 | them | they | PRON | Case=Acc Number=Plur Person=3 PronType=Prs | 3 answer | obj |
| 5 | not | not | PART | Polarity=Neg | 3 answer | advmod |
| 6 | a | a | DET | Definite=Ind PronType=Art | 7 word | det |
| 7 | word | word | NOUN | Number=Sing | 3 answer | obl |
| 8 | , | , | PUNCT | _ | 10 feeble | punct |
| 9 | so | so | ADV | _ | 10 feeble | advmod |
| 10 | feeble | feeble | ADJ | Degree=Pos | 13 become | xcomp |
| 11 | had | have | AUX | Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | 13 become | aux |
| 12 | he | he | PRON | Case=Nom Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs | 13 become | nsubj |
| 13 | become | become | VERB | Tense=Past VerbForm=Part | 3 answer | parataxis |
| 14 | ; | ; | PUNCT | _ | 17 grew | punct |
| 15 | his | his | PRON | Case=Gen Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 Poss=Yes PronType=Prs | 16 eyes | nmod:poss |
| 16 | eyes | eye | NOUN | Number=Plur | 17 grew | nsubj |
| 17 | grew | grow | VERB | Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | 3 answer | parataxis |
| 18 | suddenly | suddenly | ADV | _ | 19 dim | advmod |
| 19 | dim | dim | ADJ | Degree=Pos | 17 grew | xcomp |
| 20 | , | , | PUNCT | _ | 23 fainted | punct |
| 21 | and | and | CCONJ | _ | 23 fainted | cc |
| 22 | he | he | PRON | Case=Nom Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs | 23 fainted | nsubj |
| 23 | fainted | faint | VERB | Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | 17 grew | conj |
| 24 | away | away | ADV | _ | 23 fainted | advmod |
| 25 | in | in | ADP | _ | 27 arms | case |
| 26 | their | their | PRON | Case=Gen Number=Plur Person=3 Poss=Yes PronType=Prs | 27 arms | nmod:poss |
| 27 | arms | arm | NOUN | Number=Plur | 23 fainted | obl |
| 28 | . | . | PUNCT | _ | 3 answer | punct |
Pragmatics
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | not answer speech: assert | could | stranger | a word | Friend | vn reciprocate-112-1 «NP V PP»: agent=Agent they=Eventuality | |||
| 2 | become | past · perfect | stranger | feeble property | vn become-109.1-1-1 «NP V PP.attribute»: agent=Patient | ||||
| 3 | grow | past | stranger's eyes | dim property | vn appear-48.1.1 «NP V»: agent=Theme | ||||
| 4 | faint away | past | stranger | Friend's arms | away property | vn change_bodily_state-40.8.4 «NP V»: agent=Experiencer |
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/pg66819/16/22/