The Sampo: A Wonder Tale of the Old North, The Field of Serpents, sentence 40
Surely, the task which he performed was hard, but if he succeeded why may not another hero do likewise?”
Who acts: task, Piru, hero · What happens: perform, be, succeed, not do
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 (task, Piru, hero), 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 | Surely | surely | ADV | _ | 9 hard | advmod |
| 2 | , | , | PUNCT | _ | 1 Surely | punct |
| 3 | the | the | DET | Definite=Def PronType=Art | 4 task | det |
| 4 | task | task | NOUN | Number=Sing | 9 hard | nsubj |
| 5 | which | which | PRON | PronType=Rel | 7 performed | nsubj |
| 6 | he | he | PRON | Case=Nom Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs | 7 performed | nsubj |
| 7 | performed | perform | VERB | Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | 4 task | acl:relcl |
| 8 | was | be | AUX | Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | 9 hard | cop |
| 9 | hard | hard | ADJ | Degree=Pos | root | root |
| 10 | , | , | PUNCT | _ | 14 succeeded | punct |
| 11 | but | but | CCONJ | _ | 14 succeeded | cc |
| 12 | if | if | SCONJ | _ | 14 succeeded | mark |
| 13 | he | he | PRON | Case=Nom Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs | 14 succeeded | nsubj |
| 14 | succeeded | succeed | VERB | Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | 9 hard | conj |
| 15 | why | why | ADV | PronType=Int | 20 do | advmod |
| 16 | may | may | AUX | VerbForm=Fin | 20 do | aux |
| 17 | not | not | PART | Polarity=Neg | 20 do | advmod |
| 18 | another | another | DET | PronType=Ind | 19 hero | det |
| 19 | hero | hero | NOUN | Number=Sing | 20 do | nsubj |
| 20 | do | do | VERB | VerbForm=Inf | 14 succeeded | advcl |
| 21 | likewise | likewise | ADV | _ | 20 do | advmod |
| 22 | ? | ? | PUNCT | _ | 9 hard | punct |
| 23 | ” | " | PUNCT | _ | 9 hard | punct |
Pragmatics
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | perform | past | the task | Piru nsubj | vn performance-26.7 «NP V»: agent=Agent | ||||
| 2 | is | past | the task | hard, surely property | tree rules | ||||
| 3 | succeed a condition, not said to happen | past | Piru | vn succeed-74-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent | |||||
| 4 | not do | may | another hero | likewise property | vn act-114-1 «NP V»: 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/pg66819/24/40/