Negro myths from the Georgia coast, told in the vernacular, Opening, part 13, sentence 6

At length the old man firmly grasped the tooth with the forceps, and began to haul away at it.

Who acts: old man · What happens: grasp, begin, haul away · To what, where: tooth, length

This is a sentence of «Negro myths from the Georgia coast, told in the vernacular» by Charles C., Jr. Jones, Opening, part 13. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (old 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	At	at	ADP	_	2 length	case
2	length	length	NOUN	Number=Sing	7 grasped	obl
3	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	5 man	det
4	old	old	ADJ	Degree=Pos	5 man	amod
5	man	man	NOUN	Number=Sing	7 grasped	nsubj
6	firmly	firmly	ADV	_	7 grasped	advmod
7	grasped	grasp	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	root	root
8	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	9 tooth	det
9	tooth	tooth	NOUN	Number=Sing	7 grasped	obj
10	with	with	ADP	_	12 forceps	case
11	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	12 forceps	det
12	forceps	forceps	NOUN	Number=Plur	7 grasped	obl
13	,	,	PUNCT	_	15 began	punct
14	and	and	CCONJ	_	15 began	cc
15	began	begin	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	7 grasped	conj
16	to	to	PART	_	17 haul	mark
17	haul	haul	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	15 began	xcomp
18	away	away	ADV	_	17 haul	advmod
19	at	at	ADP	_	20 it	case
20	it	it	PRON	Case=Acc Gender=Neut Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	17 haul	obl
21	.	.	PUNCT	_	7 grasped	punct

Pragmatics

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	where	other	roles by
1	grasp	past	the old man	the tooth	length	with the forceps; firmly property	vn touch-20-1 «NP V NP PP.instrument»: agent=Agent tooth=Experiencer with forceps=Instrument
2	begin	past	the old man not said here				vn begin-55.1-1-1 «NP V S_INF»: agent=Agent clause=Eventuality
3	haul away	to-infinitive	the old man not said here		tooth	away property	vn carry-11.4 «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: «Negro myths from the Georgia coast, told in the vernacular» by Charles C., Jr. Jones, Project Gutenberg book 76586 (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/pg76586/13/6/

🌲 Negro myths from the Georgia coast, told in the vernacular, Opening, part 13, sentence 6

The tree

Pragmatics

Negro myths from the Georgia coast, told in the vernacular, Opening, part 13, sentence 6