The Sampo: A Wonder Tale of the Old North, The Slave Boy, sentence 24
“A herdsman’s task requires neither skill nor wearying labor, and perhaps the slave will find his proper place among the cattle in the quiet pastures.”
Who acts: task, slave, herdsman · What happens: require, weary, find, task · To what, where: skill, labor, proper place
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 (task, slave, herdsman), 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 requires | punct |
| 2 | A | a | DET | Definite=Ind PronType=Art | 3 herdsman | det |
| 3 | herdsman | herdsman | NOUN | Number=Sing | 5 task | nmod:poss |
| 4 | ’s | 's | PART | _ | 3 herdsman | case |
| 5 | task | task | NOUN | Number=Sing | 6 requires | nsubj |
| 6 | requires | require | VERB | Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin | root | root |
| 7 | neither | neither | CCONJ | Polarity=Neg | 8 skill | cc:preconj |
| 8 | skill | skill | NOUN | Number=Sing | 6 requires | obj |
| 9 | nor | nor | CCONJ | Polarity=Neg | 10 wearying | cc |
| 10 | wearying | weary | VERB | Tense=Pres VerbForm=Part | 8 skill | conj |
| 11 | labor | labor | NOUN | Number=Sing | 10 wearying | obj |
| 12 | , | , | PUNCT | _ | 18 find | punct |
| 13 | and | and | CCONJ | _ | 18 find | cc |
| 14 | perhaps | perhaps | ADV | _ | 18 find | advmod |
| 15 | the | the | DET | Definite=Def PronType=Art | 16 slave | det |
| 16 | slave | slave | NOUN | Number=Sing | 18 find | nsubj |
| 17 | will | will | AUX | VerbForm=Fin | 18 find | aux |
| 18 | find | find | VERB | VerbForm=Inf | 6 requires | conj |
| 19 | his | his | PRON | Case=Gen Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 Poss=Yes PronType=Prs | 21 place | nmod:poss |
| 20 | proper | proper | ADJ | Degree=Pos | 21 place | amod |
| 21 | place | place | NOUN | Number=Sing | 18 find | obj |
| 22 | among | among | ADP | _ | 24 cattle | case |
| 23 | the | the | DET | Definite=Def PronType=Art | 24 cattle | det |
| 24 | cattle | cattle | NOUN | Number=Sing | 18 find | obl |
| 25 | in | in | ADP | _ | 28 pastures | case |
| 26 | the | the | DET | Definite=Def PronType=Art | 28 pastures | det |
| 27 | quiet | quiet | ADJ | Degree=Pos | 28 pastures | amod |
| 28 | pastures | pasture | NOUN | Number=Plur | 24 cattle | nmod |
| 29 | . | . | PUNCT | _ | 6 requires | punct |
| 30 | ” | " | PUNCT | _ | 6 requires | punct |
Pragmatics
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | require in a quote | present | a herdsman's task | skill | vn require-103-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Theme skill=Precondition | ||||
| 2 | weary in a quote | gerund | a herdsman's task not said here | labor | vn amuse-31.1 «NP V NP»: agent=Stimulus labor=Experiencer | ||||
| 3 | find in a quote | future | the slave | slave's proper place | among the cattle in the quiet pastures; perhaps property | vn discover-84 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent place=Topic | |||
| 4 | task in a quote | a herdsman | nom task «act transitive»: poss=agent |
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/pg66819/29/24/