The Sampo: A Wonder Tale of the Old North, The Weeping Ship, sentence 88
They leaned forward, they dipped their oars in the waves, they strained every muscle till the rowlocks groaned and cracked.
Who acts: youths, rowlocks · What happens: learn, dip, strain, groan, crack · To what, where: oars, waves, muscle
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 (youths, rowlocks), 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 | They | they | PRON | Case=Nom Number=Plur Person=3 PronType=Prs | 2 leaned | nsubj |
| 2 | leaned | learn | VERB | Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | root | root |
| 3 | forward | forward | ADV | _ | 2 leaned | advmod |
| 4 | , | , | PUNCT | _ | 6 dipped | punct |
| 5 | they | they | PRON | Case=Nom Number=Plur Person=3 PronType=Prs | 6 dipped | nsubj |
| 6 | dipped | dip | VERB | Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | 2 leaned | conj |
| 7 | their | their | PRON | Case=Gen Number=Plur Person=3 Poss=Yes PronType=Prs | 8 oars | nmod:poss |
| 8 | oars | oar | NOUN | Number=Plur | 6 dipped | obj |
| 9 | in | in | ADP | _ | 11 waves | case |
| 10 | the | the | DET | Definite=Def PronType=Art | 11 waves | det |
| 11 | waves | wave | NOUN | Number=Plur | 6 dipped | obl |
| 12 | , | , | PUNCT | _ | 14 strained | punct |
| 13 | they | they | PRON | Case=Nom Number=Plur Person=3 PronType=Prs | 14 strained | nsubj |
| 14 | strained | strain | VERB | Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | 2 leaned | conj |
| 15 | every | every | DET | PronType=Tot | 16 muscle | det |
| 16 | muscle | muscle | NOUN | Number=Sing | 14 strained | obj |
| 17 | till | till | SCONJ | _ | 20 groaned | mark |
| 18 | the | the | DET | Definite=Def PronType=Art | 19 rowlocks | det |
| 19 | rowlocks | rowlock | NOUN | Number=Plur | 20 groaned | nsubj |
| 20 | groaned | groan | VERB | Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | 14 strained | advcl |
| 21 | and | and | CCONJ | _ | 22 cracked | cc |
| 22 | cracked | crack | VERB | Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | 20 groaned | conj |
| 23 | . | . | PUNCT | _ | 2 leaned | punct |
Pragmatics
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | learn | past | youths = youth | forward property | vn learn-14-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent | ||||
| 2 | dip | past | youths = youth | youths's oars | the waves | vn funnel-9.3 «NP V NP PP.trajectory»: agent=Agent oar=Theme in wave=Trajectory | |||
| 3 | strain | past | youths = youth | every muscle | vn wipe_manner-10.4.1 «NP V NP.source»: agent=Agent muscle=Source | ||||
| 4 | groan | past | the rowlocks | vn animal_sounds-38 «NP V»: agent=Agent | |||||
| 5 | crack | past | the rowlocks not said here | vn sound_emission-43.2 «NP V»: agent=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/pg66819/33/88/