The Sampo: A Wonder Tale of the Old North, The Wicked Hornet, sentence 80
Try as he might, the Smith did not know how to give the metal a harder temper.
Who acts: you, Smith · What happens: try, not know, give · To what, where: metal · Speech: someone speaks here
This is a sentence of «The Sampo: A Wonder Tale of the Old North» by James Baldwin, The Wicked Hornet. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (you, Smith), 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 | Try | try | VERB | Mood=Imp VerbForm=Fin | root | root |
| 2 | as | as | SCONJ | _ | 4 might | mark |
| 3 | he | he | PRON | Case=Nom Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs | 4 might | nsubj |
| 4 | might | might | AUX | VerbForm=Fin | 1 Try | advcl |
| 5 | , | , | PUNCT | _ | 10 know | punct |
| 6 | the | the | DET | Definite=Def PronType=Art | 7 Smith | det |
| 7 | Smith | Smith | PROPN | Number=Sing | 10 know | nsubj |
| 8 | did | do | AUX | Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | 10 know | aux |
| 9 | not | not | PART | Polarity=Neg | 10 know | advmod |
| 10 | know | know | VERB | VerbForm=Inf | 1 Try | parataxis |
| 11 | how | how | ADV | PronType=Int | 13 give | advmod |
| 12 | to | to | PART | _ | 13 give | mark |
| 13 | give | give | VERB | VerbForm=Inf | 10 know | ccomp |
| 14 | the | the | DET | Definite=Def PronType=Art | 15 metal | det |
| 15 | metal | metal | NOUN | Number=Sing | 13 give | obj |
| 16 | a | a | DET | Definite=Ind PronType=Art | 18 temper | det |
| 17 | harder | hard | ADJ | Degree=Cmp | 18 temper | amod |
| 18 | temper | temper | NOUN | Number=Sing | 13 give | obj |
| 19 | . | . | PUNCT | _ | 1 Try | punct |
Pragmatics
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | try | imperative | you not said here | vn amuse-31.1 «NP V ADV-Middle»: agent=Experiencer | |||||
| 2 | not know | past · do-support | the Smith | vn comprehend-87.2-1-1-1 «NP V how S_INF»: agent=Experiencer clause=Stimulus | |||||
| 3 | give | to-infinitive | the metal | a harder temper obj | vn give-13.1-1 «NP V NP-Dative NP»: agent=Agent metal=Recipient temper=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/pg66819/5/80/