The Sampo: A Wonder Tale of the Old North, The Pursuit, sentence 19
Like a monstrous sea-bird skimming over the waves, or like a white cloud scudding low upon the billows, so did the swift warship speed onward over the vast and measureless sea.
Who acts: white cloud · What happens: scud, do · To what, where: billows, swift warship speed, vast sea
This is a sentence of «The Sampo: A Wonder Tale of the Old North» by James Baldwin, The Pursuit. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (white cloud), 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 | Like | like | ADP | _ | 7 skimming | case |
| 2 | a | a | DET | Definite=Ind PronType=Art | 7 skimming | det |
| 3 | monstrous | monstrous | ADJ | Degree=Pos | 7 skimming | amod |
| 4 | sea | sea | NOUN | Number=Sing | 6 bird | compound |
| 5 | - | - | PUNCT | _ | 4 sea | punct |
| 6 | bird | bird | NOUN | Number=Sing | 7 skimming | compound |
| 7 | skimming | skimming | NOUN | Number=Sing | 24 did | obl |
| 8 | over | over | ADP | _ | 10 waves | case |
| 9 | the | the | DET | Definite=Def PronType=Art | 10 waves | det |
| 10 | waves | wave | NOUN | Number=Plur | 7 skimming | nmod |
| 11 | , | , | PUNCT | _ | 16 cloud | punct |
| 12 | or | or | CCONJ | _ | 16 cloud | cc |
| 13 | like | like | ADP | _ | 16 cloud | case |
| 14 | a | a | DET | Definite=Ind PronType=Art | 16 cloud | det |
| 15 | white | white | ADJ | Degree=Pos | 16 cloud | amod |
| 16 | cloud | cloud | NOUN | Number=Sing | 7 skimming | conj |
| 17 | scudding | scud | VERB | VerbForm=Ger | 16 cloud | acl |
| 18 | low | low | ADV | Degree=Pos | 17 scudding | advmod |
| 19 | upon | upon | ADP | _ | 21 billows | case |
| 20 | the | the | DET | Definite=Def PronType=Art | 21 billows | det |
| 21 | billows | billow | NOUN | Number=Plur | 17 scudding | obl |
| 22 | , | , | PUNCT | _ | 7 skimming | punct |
| 23 | so | so | ADV | _ | 24 did | advmod |
| 24 | did | do | VERB | Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=1 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | root | root |
| 25 | the | the | DET | Definite=Def PronType=Art | 28 speed | det |
| 26 | swift | swift | ADJ | Degree=Pos | 28 speed | amod |
| 27 | warship | warship | NOUN | Number=Sing | 28 speed | compound |
| 28 | speed | speed | NOUN | Number=Sing | 24 did | obj |
| 29 | onward | onward | ADV | _ | 24 did | advmod |
| 30 | over | over | ADP | _ | 35 sea | case |
| 31 | the | the | DET | Definite=Def PronType=Art | 35 sea | det |
| 32 | vast | vast | ADJ | Degree=Pos | 35 sea | amod |
| 33 | and | and | CCONJ | _ | 34 measureless | cc |
| 34 | measureless | measureless | ADJ | Degree=Pos | 32 vast | conj |
| 35 | sea | sea | NOUN | Number=Sing | 24 did | obl |
| 36 | . | . | PUNCT | _ | 24 did | punct |
Pragmatics
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | scud | gerund | a white cloud not said here | the billows | low property | vn run-51.3.2 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Theme upon billow=Trajectory | |||
| 2 | do | past | the swift warship speed | the vast sea | like a monstrous bird skimming over the waves or a white cloud; onward property | vn act-114-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent speed=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/pg66819/37/19/