The Sampo: A Wonder Tale of the Old North, The Barking Dogs, sentence 148
She twirled the rowan branch once, twice, thrice in the air above her head, and then cast it upon the hearth, scattering the ashes to right and left and sending a cloud of cinders upward through the smoke hole.
Who acts: world · What happens: twirl, cast, scatter, send, cloud · To what, where: rowan branch, head, hearth, ashes, cloud, smoke hole
This is a sentence of «The Sampo: A Wonder Tale of the Old North» by James Baldwin, The Barking Dogs. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (world), 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 | She | she | PRON | Case=Nom Gender=Fem Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs | 2 twirled | nsubj |
| 2 | twirled | twirl | VERB | Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | root | root |
| 3 | the | the | DET | Definite=Def PronType=Art | 5 branch | det |
| 4 | rowan | rowan | NOUN | Number=Sing | 5 branch | compound |
| 5 | branch | branch | NOUN | Number=Sing | 2 twirled | obj |
| 6 | once | once | ADV | NumForm=Word NumType=Mult | 2 twirled | advmod |
| 7 | , | , | PUNCT | _ | 10 thrice | punct |
| 8 | twice | twice | ADV | NumForm=Word NumType=Mult | 10 thrice | advmod |
| 9 | , | , | PUNCT | _ | 10 thrice | punct |
| 10 | thrice | thrice | ADJ | Degree=Pos | 2 twirled | conj |
| 11 | in | in | ADP | _ | 13 air | case |
| 12 | the | the | DET | Definite=Def PronType=Art | 13 air | det |
| 13 | air | air | NOUN | Number=Sing | 10 thrice | obl |
| 14 | above | above | ADP | _ | 16 head | case |
| 15 | her | her | PRON | Case=Gen Gender=Fem Number=Sing Person=3 Poss=Yes PronType=Prs | 16 head | nmod:poss |
| 16 | head | head | NOUN | Number=Sing | 13 air | nmod |
| 17 | , | , | PUNCT | _ | 20 cast | punct |
| 18 | and | and | CCONJ | _ | 20 cast | cc |
| 19 | then | then | ADV | PronType=Dem | 20 cast | advmod |
| 20 | cast | cast | VERB | VerbForm=Inf | 2 twirled | conj |
| 21 | it | it | PRON | Case=Acc Gender=Neut Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs | 20 cast | obj |
| 22 | upon | upon | ADP | _ | 24 hearth | case |
| 23 | the | the | DET | Definite=Def PronType=Art | 24 hearth | det |
| 24 | hearth | hearth | NOUN | Number=Sing | 20 cast | obl |
| 25 | , | , | PUNCT | _ | 26 scattering | punct |
| 26 | scattering | scatter | VERB | Tense=Pres VerbForm=Part | 20 cast | advcl |
| 27 | the | the | DET | Definite=Def PronType=Art | 28 ashes | det |
| 28 | ashes | ash | NOUN | Number=Plur | 26 scattering | obj |
| 29 | to | to | ADP | _ | 30 right | case |
| 30 | right | right | ADJ | Degree=Pos | 26 scattering | obl |
| 31 | and | and | CCONJ | _ | 32 left | cc |
| 32 | left | left | ADJ | Degree=Pos | 30 right | conj |
| 33 | and | and | CCONJ | _ | 34 sending | cc |
| 34 | sending | send | VERB | Tense=Pres VerbForm=Part | 26 scattering | conj |
| 35 | a | a | DET | Definite=Ind PronType=Art | 36 cloud | det |
| 36 | cloud | cloud | NOUN | Number=Sing | 34 sending | obj |
| 37 | of | of | ADP | _ | 38 cinders | case |
| 38 | cinders | cinder | NOUN | Number=Plur | 36 cloud | nmod |
| 39 | upward | upward | ADV | _ | 34 sending | advmod |
| 40 | through | through | ADP | _ | 43 hole | case |
| 41 | the | the | DET | Definite=Def PronType=Art | 43 hole | det |
| 42 | smoke | smoke | NOUN | Number=Sing | 43 hole | compound |
| 43 | hole | hole | NOUN | Number=Sing | 34 sending | obl |
| 44 | . | . | PUNCT | _ | 2 twirled | punct |
Pragmatics
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | twirl | past | world | the rowan branch | once property | vn knead-26.5 «NP V NP.material»: agent=Agent branch=Material | |||
| 2 | cast | infinitive | world not said here | head | the hearth | then | vn throw-17.1 «NP V NP PP.destinations»: agent=Agent it=Theme upon hearth=Destination | ||
| 3 | scatter | gerund | world not said here | the ashes | to right | vn spray-9.7-1 «NP V NP.theme»: agent=Agent ash=Theme | |||
| 4 | send | gerund | world not said here | a cloud of cinders | the smoke hole | upward property | vn confine-92-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent cloud=Theme | ||
| 5 | cloud | cinders | nom cloud «phenomenon transitive»: of=patient |
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/pg66819/22/148/