The Sampo: A Wonder Tale of the Old North, The Slave Boy, sentence 15

He gave the boy an axe and bade him cut an armload of kindlings for the fire; but the worthless fellow began chopping the beams of the house.

Who acts: slave, axe, worthless fellow · What happens: give, cut, begin, chop, beam · To what, where: boy, armload, beams, house

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, axe, worthless fellow), 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	He	he	PRON	Case=Nom Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	2 gave	nsubj
2	gave	give	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	root	root
3	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	4 boy	det
4	boy	boy	NOUN	Number=Sing	2 gave	iobj
5	an	a	DET	Definite=Ind PronType=Art	6 axe	det
6	axe	axe	NOUN	Number=Sing	10 cut	nsubj
7	and	and	CCONJ	_	8 bade	cc
8	bade	bade	NOUN	Number=Sing	6 axe	conj
9	him	he	PRON	Case=Acc Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	10 cut	nsubj
10	cut	cut	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	2 gave	parataxis
11	an	a	DET	Definite=Ind PronType=Art	12 armload	det
12	armload	armload	NOUN	Number=Sing	10 cut	obj
13	of	of	ADP	_	14 kindlings	case
14	kindlings	kindling	NOUN	Number=Plur	12 armload	nmod
15	for	for	ADP	_	17 fire	case
16	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	17 fire	det
17	fire	fire	NOUN	Number=Sing	14 kindlings	nmod
18	;	;	PUNCT	_	23 began	punct
19	but	but	CCONJ	_	23 began	cc
20	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	22 fellow	det
21	worthless	worthless	ADJ	Degree=Pos	22 fellow	amod
22	fellow	fellow	NOUN	Number=Sing	23 began	nsubj
23	began	begin	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	2 gave	conj
24	chopping	chop	VERB	VerbForm=Ger	23 began	xcomp
25	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	26 beams	det
26	beams	beam	NOUN	Number=Plur	24 chopping	obj
27	of	of	ADP	_	29 house	case
28	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	29 house	det
29	house	house	NOUN	Number=Sing	26 beams	nmod
30	.	.	PUNCT	_	2 gave	punct

Pragmatics

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	other	roles by
1	give	past	slave		the boy		vn give-13.1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent boy=Theme
2	cut	past	a axe and bade	a armload of kindlings for the fire		slave nsubj	vn build-26.1-1 «NP.material V NP»: agent=Material armload=Product
3	begin	past	the worthless fellow				vn begin-55.1-1-1 «NP V S_ING»: agent=Agent clause=Eventuality
4	chop	gerund	the worthless fellow not said here	the beams of the house			vn carve-21.2-2 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent beam=Patient
5	beam			the house			nom beam «communication transitive»: of=patient

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/pg66819/29/15/

🌲 The Sampo: A Wonder Tale of the Old North, The Slave Boy, sentence 15

The tree

Pragmatics

The Sampo: A Wonder Tale of the Old North, The Slave Boy, sentence 15