The Sampo: A Wonder Tale of the Old North, The Flight, sentence 57
Then Ahti, the nimble boaster, spoke up and said, “Why should we still speak in whispers, fearing to be heard?
Who acts: Ahti, we · What happens: speak up, say, speak, fear, hear · To what, where: whispers · Speech: someone speaks here
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 (Ahti, we), 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 | 8 spoke | advmod |
| 2 | Ahti | Ahti | PROPN | Number=Sing | 8 spoke | nsubj |
| 3 | , | , | PUNCT | _ | 6 boaster | punct |
| 4 | the | the | DET | Definite=Def PronType=Art | 6 boaster | det |
| 5 | nimble | nimble | ADJ | Degree=Pos | 6 boaster | amod |
| 6 | boaster | boaster | NOUN | Number=Sing | 2 Ahti | appos |
| 7 | , | , | PUNCT | _ | 2 Ahti | punct |
| 8 | spoke | speak | VERB | Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | root | root |
| 9 | up | up | ADP | _ | 8 spoke | compound:prt |
| 10 | and | and | CCONJ | _ | 11 said | cc |
| 11 | said | say | VERB | Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | 8 spoke | conj |
| 12 | , | , | PUNCT | _ | 22 fearing | punct |
| 13 | “ | " | PUNCT | _ | 22 fearing | punct |
| 14 | Why | why | ADV | PronType=Int | 18 speak | advmod |
| 15 | should | should | AUX | VerbForm=Fin | 18 speak | aux |
| 16 | we | we | PRON | Case=Nom Number=Plur Person=1 PronType=Prs | 18 speak | nsubj |
| 17 | still | still | ADV | _ | 18 speak | advmod |
| 18 | speak | speak | VERB | Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin | 22 fearing | advcl |
| 19 | in | in | ADP | _ | 20 whispers | case |
| 20 | whispers | whisper | NOUN | Number=Plur | 18 speak | obl |
| 21 | , | , | PUNCT | _ | 18 speak | punct |
| 22 | fearing | fear | VERB | VerbForm=Ger | 11 said | ccomp |
| 23 | to | to | PART | _ | 25 heard | mark |
| 24 | be | be | AUX | VerbForm=Inf | 25 heard | aux:pass |
| 25 | heard | hear | VERB | Tense=Past VerbForm=Part Voice=Pass | 22 fearing | acl |
| 26 | ? | ? | PUNCT | _ | 8 spoke | punct |
Pragmatics
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | speak up speech: other | past | Ahti | then | vn lecture-37.11-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent | ||||
| 2 | say speech: ask | past | Ahti not said here | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent clause=Topic | |||||
| 3 | speak speech: other in a quote | should | we | whispers | still | vn talk-37.5 «NP V»: agent=Agent | |||
| 4 | fear in a quote | gerund | vn marvel-31.3 «NP V»: agent=Experiencer | ||||||
| 5 | hear in a quote | to-infinitive · passive | vn see-30.1-1-1 «NP V PP.stimulus» |
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/pg66819/36/57/