The Sampo: A Wonder Tale of the Old North, The Field of Serpents, sentence 19
The grim old Mistress grew grimmer still as she answered him: “When wilful maidens choose ’tis folly for mothers to refuse.
Who acts: grim old Mistress, Mistress, wilful maidens · What happens: grow, answer, choose, refuse · To what, where: desire, tis folly · Speech: someone speaks here
This is a sentence of «The Sampo: A Wonder Tale of the Old North» by James Baldwin, The Field of Serpents. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (grim old Mistress, Mistress, wilful maidens), 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 | 4 Mistress | det |
| 2 | grim | grim | ADJ | Degree=Pos | 4 Mistress | amod |
| 3 | old | old | ADJ | Degree=Pos | 4 Mistress | amod |
| 4 | Mistress | mistress | NOUN | Number=Sing | 5 grew | nsubj |
| 5 | grew | grow | VERB | Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | root | root |
| 6 | grimmer | grim | ADJ | Degree=Cmp | 5 grew | xcomp |
| 7 | still | still | ADV | _ | 5 grew | advmod |
| 8 | as | as | SCONJ | _ | 10 answered | mark |
| 9 | she | she | PRON | Case=Nom Gender=Fem Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs | 10 answered | nsubj |
| 10 | answered | answer | VERB | Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | 5 grew | advcl |
| 11 | him | he | PRON | Case=Acc Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs | 10 answered | obj |
| 12 | : | : | PUNCT | _ | 17 choose | punct |
| 13 | “ | " | PUNCT | _ | 17 choose | punct |
| 14 | When | when | ADV | PronType=Int | 17 choose | advmod |
| 15 | wilful | wilful | ADJ | Degree=Pos | 16 maidens | amod |
| 16 | maidens | maiden | NOUN | Number=Plur | 17 choose | nsubj |
| 17 | choose | choose | VERB | Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin | 5 grew | conj |
| 18 | ’ | ' | SYM | _ | 20 folly | punct |
| 19 | tis | tis | NOUN | Number=Sing | 20 folly | compound |
| 20 | folly | folly | NOUN | Number=Sing | 17 choose | obj |
| 21 | for | for | ADP | _ | 22 mothers | case |
| 22 | mothers | mother | NOUN | Number=Plur | 20 folly | nmod |
| 23 | to | to | PART | _ | 24 refuse | mark |
| 24 | refuse | refuse | VERB | VerbForm=Inf | 20 folly | acl |
| 25 | . | . | PUNCT | _ | 5 grew | punct |
Pragmatics
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | grow | past | the grim old Mistress | still | grim property | vn appear-48.1.1 «NP V»: agent=Theme | |||
| 2 | answer speech: assert | past | Mistress | desire | vn reciprocate-112-1 «NP V PP»: agent=Agent he=Eventuality | ||||
| 3 | choose in a quote | present | wilful maidens | tis folly | for mothers | vn get-13.5.1 «NP V NP PP.beneficiary»: agent=Agent folly=Theme for mother=Beneficiary | |||
| 4 | refuse in a quote | to-infinitive | wilful maidens not said here | tis folly not said here | vn reject-77.2 «NP V S_ING»: agent=Agent |
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/pg66819/24/19/