The Sampo: A Wonder Tale of the Old North, The Slave Boy, sentence 67
While others are happy and free I am forced to trudge unwillingly among briars and thorns, over hills and through marshes, watching the tails of hateful cattle.
Who acts: others, I · What happens: be, force, trudge, watch · To what, where: I, briars, tails
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 (others, I), 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 | While | while | SCONJ | _ | 4 happy | mark |
| 2 | others | other | NOUN | Number=Plur | 4 happy | nsubj |
| 3 | are | be | AUX | Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin | 4 happy | cop |
| 4 | happy | happy | ADJ | Degree=Pos | root | root |
| 5 | and | and | CCONJ | _ | 6 free | cc |
| 6 | free | free | ADJ | Degree=Pos | 4 happy | conj |
| 7 | I | I | PRON | Case=Nom Number=Sing Person=1 PronType=Prs | 9 forced | nsubj:pass |
| 8 | am | be | AUX | Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=1 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin | 9 forced | aux:pass |
| 9 | forced | force | VERB | Tense=Past VerbForm=Part Voice=Pass | 4 happy | parataxis |
| 10 | to | to | PART | _ | 11 trudge | mark |
| 11 | trudge | trudge | VERB | VerbForm=Inf | 9 forced | xcomp |
| 12 | unwillingly | unwillingly | ADV | _ | 11 trudge | advmod |
| 13 | among | among | ADP | _ | 14 briars | case |
| 14 | briars | briar | NOUN | Number=Plur | 11 trudge | obl |
| 15 | and | and | CCONJ | _ | 16 thorns | cc |
| 16 | thorns | thorn | NOUN | Number=Plur | 14 briars | conj |
| 17 | , | , | PUNCT | _ | 19 hills | punct |
| 18 | over | over | ADP | _ | 19 hills | case |
| 19 | hills | hill | NOUN | Number=Plur | 14 briars | conj |
| 20 | and | and | CCONJ | _ | 22 marshes | cc |
| 21 | through | through | ADP | _ | 22 marshes | case |
| 22 | marshes | marsh | NOUN | Number=Plur | 14 briars | conj |
| 23 | , | , | PUNCT | _ | 24 watching | punct |
| 24 | watching | watch | VERB | Tense=Pres VerbForm=Part | 11 trudge | advcl |
| 25 | the | the | DET | Definite=Def PronType=Art | 26 tails | det |
| 26 | tails | tail | NOUN | Number=Plur | 24 watching | obj |
| 27 | of | of | ADP | _ | 29 cattle | case |
| 28 | hateful | hateful | ADJ | Degree=Pos | 29 cattle | amod |
| 29 | cattle | cattle | NOUN | Number=Plur | 26 tails | nmod |
| 30 | . | . | PUNCT | _ | 4 happy | punct |
Pragmatics
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | is | present | others | happy property | tree rules | ||||
| 2 | be | others not said here | tree rules | ||||||
| 3 | force | present · passive | I | vn urge-58.1-1 «NP V NP S_ING»: subject=Recipient clause=Topic | |||||
| 4 | trudge | to-infinitive | I not said here | briars and thorns and hills and marshes | unwillingly property | vn run-51.3.2-1 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Theme among briar=Trajectory | |||
| 5 | watch | gerund | I not said here | the tails of hateful cattle | vn assessment-34.1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent tail=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/pg66819/29/67/