The Sampo: A Wonder Tale of the Old North, The Weeping Ship, sentence 109
Suddenly a sound, seemingly far, far away but drawing nearer, touched his ears and caused him to start up.
Who acts: sound · What happens: draw, touch, cause, start up · To what, where: ears, sound
This is a sentence of «The Sampo: A Wonder Tale of the Old North» by James Baldwin, The Weeping Ship. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (sound), 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 | Suddenly | suddenly | ADV | _ | 3 sound | advmod |
| 2 | a | a | DET | Definite=Ind PronType=Art | 3 sound | det |
| 3 | sound | sound | NOUN | Number=Sing | 14 touched | nsubj |
| 4 | , | , | PUNCT | _ | 9 away | punct |
| 5 | seemingly | seemingly | ADV | _ | 6 far | advmod |
| 6 | far | far | ADV | Degree=Pos | 9 away | advmod |
| 7 | , | , | PUNCT | _ | 9 away | punct |
| 8 | far | far | ADV | Degree=Pos | 9 away | advmod |
| 9 | away | away | ADV | _ | 3 sound | conj |
| 10 | but | but | CCONJ | _ | 11 drawing | cc |
| 11 | drawing | draw | VERB | Tense=Pres VerbForm=Part | 9 away | conj |
| 12 | nearer | near | ADJ | Degree=Cmp | 11 drawing | xcomp |
| 13 | , | , | PUNCT | _ | 3 sound | punct |
| 14 | touched | touch | VERB | Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | root | root |
| 15 | his | his | PRON | Case=Gen Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 Poss=Yes PronType=Prs | 16 ears | nmod:poss |
| 16 | ears | ear | NOUN | Number=Plur | 14 touched | obj |
| 17 | and | and | CCONJ | _ | 18 caused | cc |
| 18 | caused | cause | VERB | Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | 14 touched | conj |
| 19 | him | he | PRON | Case=Acc Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs | 18 caused | iobj |
| 20 | to | to | PART | _ | 21 start | mark |
| 21 | start | start | VERB | VerbForm=Inf | 18 caused | xcomp |
| 22 | up | up | ADP | _ | 21 start | compound:prt |
| 23 | . | . | PUNCT | _ | 14 touched | punct |
Pragmatics
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | draw | gerund | a sound not said here | near property | vn scribble-25.2-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent | ||||
| 2 | touch | past | a sound | sound's ears | vn contiguous_location-47.8-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Theme ear=Co-Theme | ||||
| 3 | cause | past | a sound not said here | sound | tree rules | ||||
| 4 | start up | to-infinitive | a sound not said here | vn begin-55.1-1-1 «NP.eventuality V»: agent=Eventuality |
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/pg66819/33/109/