The Sampo: A Wonder Tale of the Old North, The Slave Boy, sentence 12

“It is a good price for him, more than he is worth,” said all his neighbors, for they knew that the slave would serve him ill.

Who acts: price, slave, good price, neighbors · What happens: be, say, know, serve · To what, where: good price, neighbors, Kullervo · Speech: someone speaks here

This is a sentence of «The Sampo: A Wonder Tale of the Old North» by James Baldwin, The Slave Boy. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (price, slave, good price, neighbors), 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	“	"	PUNCT	_	6 price	punct
2	It	it	PRON	Case=Nom Gender=Neut Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	6 price	nsubj
3	is	be	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	6 price	cop
4	a	a	DET	Definite=Ind PronType=Art	6 price	det
5	good	good	ADJ	Degree=Pos	6 price	amod
6	price	price	NOUN	Number=Sing	17 said	nsubj
7	for	for	ADP	_	8 him	case
8	him	he	PRON	Case=Acc Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	6 price	nmod
9	,	,	PUNCT	_	10 more	punct
10	more	more	ADJ	Degree=Cmp	6 price	conj
11	than	than	SCONJ	_	14 worth	mark
12	he	he	PRON	Case=Nom Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	14 worth	nsubj
13	is	be	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	14 worth	cop
14	worth	worth	ADJ	Degree=Pos	10 more	advcl
15	,	,	PUNCT	_	6 price	punct
16	”	"	PUNCT	_	6 price	punct
17	said	say	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	root	root
18	all	all	DET	PronType=Tot	20 neighbors	det:predet
19	his	his	PRON	Case=Gen Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 Poss=Yes PronType=Prs	20 neighbors	nmod:poss
20	neighbors	neighbor	NOUN	Number=Plur	17 said	obj
21	,	,	PUNCT	_	24 knew	punct
22	for	for	SCONJ	_	24 knew	mark
23	they	they	PRON	Case=Nom Number=Plur Person=3 PronType=Prs	24 knew	nsubj
24	knew	know	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	17 said	parataxis
25	that	that	SCONJ	_	29 serve	mark
26	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	27 slave	det
27	slave	slave	NOUN	Number=Sing	29 serve	nsubj
28	would	would	AUX	VerbForm=Fin	29 serve	aux
29	serve	serve	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	24 knew	ccomp
30	him	he	PRON	Case=Acc Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	29 serve	obj
31	ill	ill	ADJ	Degree=Pos	29 serve	xcomp
32	.	.	PUNCT	_	17 said	punct

Pragmatics

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	other	roles by
1	is a in a quote	present	price	a good price	for slave	tree rules
2	be in a quote		price not said here			tree rules
3	is in a quote	present	slave		worth property	tree rules
4	say speech: assert	past	a good price	slave's neighbors		vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V NP.topic»: agent=Agent neighbor=Topic
5	know	past	neighbors = neighbor			vn comprehend-87.2-1-1-1 «NP V S_ING»: agent=Experiencer clause=Stimulus
6	serve	would	the slave	Kullervo	ill property	vn masquerade-29.6-2 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent he=Attribute

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/pg66819/29/12/

🌲 The Sampo: A Wonder Tale of the Old North, The Slave Boy, sentence 12

The tree

Pragmatics

The Sampo: A Wonder Tale of the Old North, The Slave Boy, sentence 12