The Sampo: A Wonder Tale of the Old North, The Weeping Ship, sentence 146
A sturdy swimmer he was, like the seals, his only neighbors; and the water held no terrors for him, buffet him as it might.
Who acts: sturdy swimmer, water · What happens: be, hold, buffet · To what, where: terrors, fisherman
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 (sturdy swimmer, water), 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 | A | a | DET | Definite=Ind PronType=Art | 3 swimmer | det |
| 2 | sturdy | sturdy | ADJ | Degree=Pos | 3 swimmer | amod |
| 3 | swimmer | swimmer | NOUN | Number=Sing | 9 seals | nsubj |
| 4 | he | he | PRON | Case=Nom Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs | 9 seals | nsubj |
| 5 | was | be | AUX | Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | 9 seals | cop |
| 6 | , | , | PUNCT | _ | 9 seals | punct |
| 7 | like | like | ADP | _ | 9 seals | case |
| 8 | the | the | DET | Definite=Def PronType=Art | 9 seals | det |
| 9 | seals | seal | NOUN | Number=Plur | root | root |
| 10 | , | , | PUNCT | _ | 13 neighbors | punct |
| 11 | his | his | PRON | Case=Gen Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 Poss=Yes PronType=Prs | 13 neighbors | nmod:poss |
| 12 | only | only | ADJ | Degree=Pos | 13 neighbors | amod |
| 13 | neighbors | neighbor | NOUN | Number=Plur | 9 seals | conj |
| 14 | ; | ; | PUNCT | _ | 18 held | punct |
| 15 | and | and | CCONJ | _ | 18 held | cc |
| 16 | the | the | DET | Definite=Def PronType=Art | 17 water | det |
| 17 | water | water | NOUN | Number=Sing | 18 held | nsubj |
| 18 | held | hold | VERB | Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | 9 seals | parataxis |
| 19 | no | no | DET | PronType=Neg | 20 terrors | det |
| 20 | terrors | terror | NOUN | Number=Plur | 18 held | obj |
| 21 | for | for | ADP | _ | 22 him | case |
| 22 | him | he | PRON | Case=Acc Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs | 20 terrors | nmod |
| 23 | , | , | PUNCT | _ | 24 buffet | punct |
| 24 | buffet | buffet | VERB | VerbForm=Inf | 18 held | conj |
| 25 | him | he | PRON | Case=Acc Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs | 24 buffet | obj |
| 26 | as | as | SCONJ | _ | 28 might | mark |
| 27 | it | it | PRON | Case=Nom Gender=Neut Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs | 28 might | nsubj |
| 28 | might | might | AUX | VerbForm=Fin | 24 buffet | advcl |
| 29 | . | . | PUNCT | _ | 9 seals | punct |
Pragmatics
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | is | past | a sturdy swimmer | like the seals and fisherman's only neighbors; fisherman nsubj; fisherman's only neighbors conj | tree rules | ||||
| 2 | hold | past | the water | no terrors | for fisherman | vn keep-15.2 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent terror=Theme | |||
| 3 | buffet | infinitive | the water not said here | fisherman | vn pelt-17.2 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent he=Destination |
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/pg66819/33/146/