The Sampo: A Wonder Tale of the Old North, The Flight, sentence 109
Then came an old serving-man with trembling limbs and with tears in his eyes, who knelt in the dust before her and begged her mercy.
Who acts: old serving man · What happens: come, kneel, beg · To what, where: dust, mercy
This is a sentence of «The Sampo: A Wonder Tale of the Old North» by James Baldwin, The Flight. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (old serving man), 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 | Then | then | ADV | PronType=Dem | 2 came | advmod |
| 2 | came | come | VERB | Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | root | root |
| 3 | an | a | DET | Definite=Ind PronType=Art | 7 man | det |
| 4 | old | old | ADJ | Degree=Pos | 7 man | amod |
| 5 | serving | serving | NOUN | Number=Sing | 7 man | compound |
| 6 | - | - | PUNCT | _ | 5 serving | punct |
| 7 | man | man | NOUN | Number=Sing | 2 came | nsubj |
| 8 | with | with | ADP | _ | 10 limbs | case |
| 9 | trembling | trembling | NOUN | Number=Sing | 10 limbs | compound |
| 10 | limbs | limb | NOUN | Number=Plur | 7 man | nmod |
| 11 | and | and | CCONJ | _ | 13 tears | cc |
| 12 | with | with | ADP | _ | 13 tears | case |
| 13 | tears | tear | NOUN | Number=Plur | 10 limbs | conj |
| 14 | in | in | ADP | _ | 16 eyes | case |
| 15 | his | his | PRON | Case=Gen Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 Poss=Yes PronType=Prs | 16 eyes | nmod:poss |
| 16 | eyes | eye | NOUN | Number=Plur | 7 man | nmod |
| 17 | , | , | PUNCT | _ | 19 knelt | punct |
| 18 | who | who | PRON | PronType=Rel | 19 knelt | nsubj |
| 19 | knelt | kneel | VERB | Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | 7 man | acl:relcl |
| 20 | in | in | ADP | _ | 22 dust | case |
| 21 | the | the | DET | Definite=Def PronType=Art | 22 dust | det |
| 22 | dust | dust | NOUN | Number=Sing | 19 knelt | obl |
| 23 | before | before | ADP | _ | 24 her | case |
| 24 | her | she | PRON | Case=Acc Gender=Fem Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs | 19 knelt | obl |
| 25 | and | and | CCONJ | _ | 26 begged | cc |
| 26 | begged | beg | VERB | Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | 19 knelt | conj |
| 27 | her | her | PRON | Case=Gen Gender=Fem Number=Sing Person=3 Poss=Yes PronType=Prs | 28 mercy | nmod:poss |
| 28 | mercy | mercy | NOUN | Number=Sing | 26 begged | obj |
| 29 | . | . | PUNCT | _ | 2 came | punct |
Pragmatics
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | come | past | a old serving man with trembling limbs and tears in Sampo's eyes | then | vn escape-51.1-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme | ||||
| 2 | kneel | past | a old serving man with trembling limbs and tears in Sampo's eyes | the dust | before Louhi | vn assuming_position-50 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Agent in dust=Location | |||
| 3 | beg speech: request | past | a old serving man with trembling limbs and tears in Sampo's eyes not said here | Louhi's mercy | vn beg-58.2-1-1 «NP V NP PP.Topic»: agent=Agent mercy=Recipient |
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/pg66819/36/109/