The Sampo: A Wonder Tale of the Old North, The Field of Serpents, sentence 20
But never should suitor win his bride too easily, lest doing so he prize her too lightly.
Who acts: desire · What happens: not win, do, prize · To what, where: bride
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 (desire), 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 | But | but | CCONJ | _ | 5 win | cc |
| 2 | never | never | ADV | PronType=Neg | 5 win | advmod |
| 3 | should | should | AUX | VerbForm=Fin | 5 win | aux |
| 4 | suitor | suitor | NOUN | Number=Sing | 5 win | compound |
| 5 | win | win | VERB | Mood=Imp VerbForm=Fin | root | root |
| 6 | his | his | PRON | Case=Gen Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 Poss=Yes PronType=Prs | 7 bride | nmod:poss |
| 7 | bride | bride | NOUN | Number=Sing | 5 win | obj |
| 8 | too | too | ADV | _ | 9 easily | advmod |
| 9 | easily | easily | ADV | _ | 5 win | advmod |
| 10 | , | , | PUNCT | _ | 12 doing | punct |
| 11 | lest | lest | SCONJ | _ | 12 doing | mark |
| 12 | doing | do | VERB | Tense=Pres VerbForm=Part | 5 win | conj |
| 13 | so | so | ADV | _ | 15 prize | advmod |
| 14 | he | he | PRON | Case=Nom Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs | 15 prize | nsubj |
| 15 | prize | prize | VERB | VerbForm=Inf | 12 doing | xcomp |
| 16 | her | she | PRON | Case=Acc Gender=Fem Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs | 15 prize | obj |
| 17 | too | too | ADV | _ | 18 lightly | advmod |
| 18 | lightly | lightly | ADV | _ | 15 prize | advmod |
| 19 | . | . | PUNCT | _ | 5 win | punct |
Pragmatics
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | not win | should | desire's bride | suitor compound; easily property | vn succeed-74-2 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent bride=Eventuality | ||||
| 2 | do | gerund | tree rules | ||||||
| 3 | prize | infinitive | desire | bride | lightly property | vn admire-31.2 «NP V NP»: agent=Experiencer she=Stimulus |
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/pg66819/24/20/