The Sampo: A Wonder Tale of the Old North, The Field of Serpents, sentence 98
They reared their heads high and looked at the hero, they licked out their tongues and threatened him.
Who acts: reptiles · What happens: rear, look, lick out, threaten · To what, where: heads, tongues, hero
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 (reptiles), 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 | They | they | PRON | Case=Nom Number=Plur Person=3 PronType=Prs | 2 reared | nsubj |
| 2 | reared | rear | VERB | Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | root | root |
| 3 | their | their | PRON | Case=Gen Number=Plur Person=3 Poss=Yes PronType=Prs | 4 heads | nmod:poss |
| 4 | heads | head | NOUN | Number=Plur | 2 reared | obj |
| 5 | high | high | ADJ | Degree=Pos | 2 reared | xcomp |
| 6 | and | and | CCONJ | _ | 7 looked | cc |
| 7 | looked | look | VERB | Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | 2 reared | conj |
| 8 | at | at | ADP | _ | 10 hero | case |
| 9 | the | the | DET | Definite=Def PronType=Art | 10 hero | det |
| 10 | hero | hero | NOUN | Number=Sing | 7 looked | obl |
| 11 | , | , | PUNCT | _ | 13 licked | punct |
| 12 | they | they | PRON | Case=Nom Number=Plur Person=3 PronType=Prs | 13 licked | nsubj |
| 13 | licked | lick | VERB | Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | 2 reared | parataxis |
| 14 | out | out | ADP | _ | 13 licked | compound:prt |
| 15 | their | their | PRON | Case=Gen Number=Plur Person=3 Poss=Yes PronType=Prs | 16 tongues | nmod:poss |
| 16 | tongues | tongue | NOUN | Number=Plur | 13 licked | obj |
| 17 | and | and | CCONJ | _ | 18 threatened | cc |
| 18 | threatened | threaten | VERB | Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | 13 licked | conj |
| 19 | him | he | PRON | Case=Acc Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs | 18 threatened | obj |
| 20 | . | . | PUNCT | _ | 2 reared | punct |
Pragmatics
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | rear | past | reptiles = reptile | reptiles's heads | high property | vn rear-26.2.2 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent head=Patient | |||
| 2 | look | past | reptiles = reptile not said here | at the hero | vn peer-30.3 «NP V PP.theme»: agent=Agent at hero=Theme | ||||
| 3 | lick out | past | reptiles = reptile | reptiles's tongues | vn wipe_manner-10.4.1-1 «NP V NP.source»: agent=Agent tongue=Source | ||||
| 4 | threaten | past | reptiles = reptile not said here | hero | vn amuse-31.1 «NP V NP»: agent=Stimulus he=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/pg66819/24/98/