The Sampo: A Wonder Tale of the Old North, The Great Pike, sentence 81
She seized the fearful sprite by the head; with her iron talons she twisted the creature’s neck and forced it to hide again in the slimy, pitch-like ooze in the bed of the murky stream.
Who acts: eagle, sprite · What happens: seize, twist, force, hide · To what, where: fearful sprite, neck, sprite, slimy like ooze
This is a sentence of «The Sampo: A Wonder Tale of the Old North» by James Baldwin, The Great Pike. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (eagle, sprite), 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 seized | nsubj |
| 2 | seized | seize | VERB | Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | root | root |
| 3 | the | the | DET | Definite=Def PronType=Art | 5 sprite | det |
| 4 | fearful | fearful | ADJ | Degree=Pos | 5 sprite | amod |
| 5 | sprite | sprite | NOUN | Number=Sing | 2 seized | obj |
| 6 | by | by | ADP | _ | 8 head | case |
| 7 | the | the | DET | Definite=Def PronType=Art | 8 head | det |
| 8 | head | head | NOUN | Number=Sing | 2 seized | obl |
| 9 | ; | ; | PUNCT | _ | 15 twisted | punct |
| 10 | with | with | ADP | _ | 13 talons | case |
| 11 | her | her | PRON | Case=Gen Gender=Fem Number=Sing Person=3 Poss=Yes PronType=Prs | 13 talons | nmod:poss |
| 12 | iron | iron | NOUN | Number=Sing | 13 talons | compound |
| 13 | talons | talon | NOUN | Number=Plur | 15 twisted | obl |
| 14 | she | she | PRON | Case=Nom Gender=Fem Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs | 15 twisted | nsubj |
| 15 | twisted | twist | VERB | Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | 2 seized | parataxis |
| 16 | the | the | DET | Definite=Def PronType=Art | 17 creature | det |
| 17 | creature | creature | NOUN | Number=Sing | 19 neck | nmod:poss |
| 18 | ’s | 's | PART | _ | 17 creature | case |
| 19 | neck | neck | NOUN | Number=Sing | 15 twisted | obj |
| 20 | and | and | CCONJ | _ | 21 forced | cc |
| 21 | forced | force | VERB | Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | 15 twisted | conj |
| 22 | it | it | PRON | Case=Acc Gender=Neut Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs | 21 forced | obj |
| 23 | to | to | PART | _ | 24 hide | mark |
| 24 | hide | hide | VERB | VerbForm=Inf | 21 forced | xcomp |
| 25 | again | again | ADV | _ | 24 hide | advmod |
| 26 | in | in | ADP | _ | 33 ooze | case |
| 27 | the | the | DET | Definite=Def PronType=Art | 33 ooze | det |
| 28 | slimy | slimy | ADJ | Degree=Pos | 33 ooze | amod |
| 29 | , | , | PUNCT | _ | 28 slimy | punct |
| 30 | pitch | pitch | NOUN | Number=Sing | 32 like | compound |
| 31 | - | - | PUNCT | _ | 30 pitch | punct |
| 32 | like | like | ADJ | Degree=Pos | 33 ooze | amod |
| 33 | ooze | ooze | NOUN | Number=Sing | 24 hide | obl |
| 34 | in | in | ADP | _ | 36 bed | case |
| 35 | the | the | DET | Definite=Def PronType=Art | 36 bed | det |
| 36 | bed | bed | NOUN | Number=Sing | 33 ooze | nmod |
| 37 | of | of | ADP | _ | 40 stream | case |
| 38 | the | the | DET | Definite=Def PronType=Art | 40 stream | det |
| 39 | murky | murky | ADJ | Degree=Pos | 40 stream | amod |
| 40 | stream | stream | NOUN | Number=Sing | 36 bed | nmod |
| 41 | . | . | PUNCT | _ | 2 seized | punct |
Pragmatics
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | seize | past | eagle | the fearful sprite | by the head | vn obtain-13.5.2 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent sprite=Theme | |||
| 2 | twist | past | eagle | the creature's neck | with eagle's iron talons | vn roll-51.3.1 «NP V NP.theme»: agent=Agent neck=Theme | |||
| 3 | force | past | eagle not said here | sprite | vn urge-58.1-1 «NP V NP S_ING»: agent=Agent it=Recipient clause=Topic | ||||
| 4 | hide | to-infinitive | sprite not said here | the slimy like ooze in the bed of the murky stream | again | vn concealment-16-1 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Agent in ooze=Location |
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/pg66819/25/81/