The Sampo: A Wonder Tale of the Old North, The Graybeard and His Son, sentence 129
The Graybeard smeared a little of the ointment on the Minstrel’s wounded knee; he stroked the poor man’s back, his hands, his head.
Who acts: Graybeard · What happens: smear, stroke · To what, where: little, hands
This is a sentence of «The Sampo: A Wonder Tale of the Old North» by James Baldwin, The Graybeard and His Son. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Graybeard), 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 | The | the | DET | Definite=Def PronType=Art | 2 Graybeard | det |
| 2 | Graybeard | Graybeard | PROPN | Number=Sing | 3 smeared | nsubj |
| 3 | smeared | smear | VERB | Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | root | root |
| 4 | a | a | DET | Definite=Ind PronType=Art | 5 little | det |
| 5 | little | little | ADJ | Degree=Pos | 3 smeared | obj |
| 6 | of | of | ADP | _ | 8 ointment | case |
| 7 | the | the | DET | Definite=Def PronType=Art | 8 ointment | det |
| 8 | ointment | ointment | NOUN | Number=Sing | 5 little | obl |
| 9 | on | on | ADP | _ | 14 knee | case |
| 10 | the | the | DET | Definite=Def PronType=Art | 11 Minstrel | det |
| 11 | Minstrel | Minstrel | PROPN | Number=Sing | 14 knee | nmod:poss |
| 12 | ’s | 's | PART | _ | 11 Minstrel | case |
| 13 | wounded | wounded | ADJ | Degree=Pos | 14 knee | amod |
| 14 | knee | knee | NOUN | Number=Sing | 8 ointment | nmod |
| 15 | ; | ; | PUNCT | _ | 17 stroked | punct |
| 16 | he | he | PRON | Case=Nom Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs | 17 stroked | nsubj |
| 17 | stroked | stroke | VERB | Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | 3 smeared | conj |
| 18 | the | the | DET | Definite=Def PronType=Art | 20 man | det |
| 19 | poor | poor | ADJ | Degree=Pos | 20 man | amod |
| 20 | man | man | NOUN | Number=Sing | 21 ’s | nsubj |
| 21 | ’s | be | AUX | Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin | 17 stroked | ccomp |
| 22 | back | back | ADV | _ | 21 ’s | advmod |
| 23 | , | , | PUNCT | _ | 25 hands | punct |
| 24 | his | his | PRON | Case=Gen Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 Poss=Yes PronType=Prs | 25 hands | nmod:poss |
| 25 | hands | hand | NOUN | Number=Plur | 17 stroked | obl |
| 26 | , | , | PUNCT | _ | 28 head | punct |
| 27 | his | his | PRON | Case=Gen Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 Poss=Yes PronType=Prs | 28 head | nmod:poss |
| 28 | head | head | NOUN | Number=Sing | 17 stroked | obl |
| 29 | . | . | PUNCT | _ | 3 smeared | punct |
Pragmatics
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | smear | past | the Graybeard | a little of the ointment on the Minstrel's wounded knee | vn spray-9.7-1 «NP V NP.theme»: agent=Agent little=Theme | ||||
| 2 | stroke | past | Graybeard | man's hands | man's head obl | vn touch-20-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent |
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/pg66819/4/129/