The Sampo: A Wonder Tale of the Old North, The Slave Boy, sentence 137
From a safe seat in the crotch of a pine the slave boy looked on and watched the slaughter; and he laughed a wild, discordant, triumphant laugh.
Who acts: slave boy, boy · What happens: look on, watch, laugh · To what, where: slaughter, wild discordant triumphant laugh
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 (slave boy, boy), 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 | From | from | ADP | _ | 4 seat | case |
| 2 | a | a | DET | Definite=Ind PronType=Art | 4 seat | det |
| 3 | safe | safe | ADJ | Degree=Pos | 4 seat | amod |
| 4 | seat | seat | NOUN | Number=Sing | 14 looked | obl |
| 5 | in | in | ADP | _ | 7 crotch | case |
| 6 | the | the | DET | Definite=Def PronType=Art | 7 crotch | det |
| 7 | crotch | crotch | NOUN | Number=Sing | 4 seat | nmod |
| 8 | of | of | ADP | _ | 10 pine | case |
| 9 | a | a | DET | Definite=Ind PronType=Art | 10 pine | det |
| 10 | pine | pine | NOUN | Number=Sing | 7 crotch | nmod |
| 11 | the | the | DET | Definite=Def PronType=Art | 13 boy | det |
| 12 | slave | slave | NOUN | Number=Sing | 13 boy | compound |
| 13 | boy | boy | NOUN | Number=Sing | 14 looked | nsubj |
| 14 | looked | look | VERB | Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | root | root |
| 15 | on | on | ADP | _ | 14 looked | compound:prt |
| 16 | and | and | CCONJ | _ | 17 watched | cc |
| 17 | watched | watch | VERB | Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | 14 looked | conj |
| 18 | the | the | DET | Definite=Def PronType=Art | 19 slaughter | det |
| 19 | slaughter | slaughter | NOUN | Number=Sing | 17 watched | obj |
| 20 | ; | ; | PUNCT | _ | 23 laughed | punct |
| 21 | and | and | CCONJ | _ | 23 laughed | cc |
| 22 | he | he | PRON | Case=Nom Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs | 23 laughed | nsubj |
| 23 | laughed | laugh | VERB | Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | 14 looked | conj |
| 24 | a | a | DET | Definite=Ind PronType=Art | 30 laugh | det |
| 25 | wild | wild | ADJ | Degree=Pos | 30 laugh | amod |
| 26 | , | , | PUNCT | _ | 25 wild | punct |
| 27 | discordant | discordant | ADJ | Degree=Pos | 30 laugh | amod |
| 28 | , | , | PUNCT | _ | 27 discordant | punct |
| 29 | triumphant | triumphant | ADJ | Degree=Pos | 30 laugh | amod |
| 30 | laugh | laugh | NOUN | Number=Sing | 23 laughed | obj |
| 31 | . | . | PUNCT | _ | 14 looked | punct |
Pragmatics
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | look on | past | the slave boy | from a safe seat in the crotch of a pine | vn peer-30.3 «NP V PP.theme»: agent=Agent from seat=Theme | ||||
| 2 | watch | past | the slave boy not said here | the slaughter | vn assessment-34.1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent slaughter=Theme | ||||
| 3 | laugh | past | boy | a wild discordant triumphant laugh | vn nonverbal_expression-40.2 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent laugh=Theme |
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/pg66819/29/137/