Olympiad: decoding a short French text ★★★, sentence 8
"Maître Corbeau, sur un arbre perché, tenait en son bec un fromage" is the start of a fable by La Fontaine (1668): Mr Crow, perched in a tree, held a cheese in his beak; a fox later tricks him into dropping it.
Who acts: bec un fromage, start, fox · What happens: be, perch, hold, trick, drop · To what, where: start, Mr Crow, tree, cheese, beak, fox
This is a sentence of the lesson «Olympiad: decoding a short French text ★★★» of the french course of Mova's primary school. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (bec un fromage, start, fox), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.
The tree
The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)
| # | word | lemma | UPOS | features | head | relation |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | " | " | PUNCT | _ | 2 Maître | punct |
| 2 | Maître | Maître | PROPN | Number=Sing | 15 fromage | obl |
| 3 | Corbeau | Corbeau | PROPN | Number=Sing | 2 Maître | flat |
| 4 | , | , | PUNCT | _ | 6 un | punct |
| 5 | sur | sur | PRON | Case=Gen Number=Sing Person=1 Poss=Yes PronType=Prs | 6 un | nmod:poss |
| 6 | un | un | NOUN | Number=Sing | 2 Maître | appos |
| 7 | arbre | arbre | ADV | _ | 8 perché | advmod |
| 8 | perché | perché | NOUN | Number=Sing | 6 un | nmod |
| 9 | , | , | PUNCT | _ | 10 tenait | punct |
| 10 | tenait | tenait | NOUN | Number=Sing | 11 en | compound |
| 11 | en | en | NOUN | Number=Sing | 12 son | compound |
| 12 | son | son | NOUN | Number=Sing | 13 bec | compound |
| 13 | bec | bec | NOUN | Number=Sing | 15 fromage | compound |
| 14 | un | un | NOUN | Number=Sing | 15 fromage | compound |
| 15 | fromage | fromage | NOUN | Number=Sing | 19 start | nsubj |
| 16 | " | " | PUNCT | _ | 15 fromage | punct |
| 17 | is | be | AUX | Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin | 19 start | cop |
| 18 | the | the | DET | Definite=Def PronType=Art | 19 start | det |
| 19 | start | start | NOUN | Number=Sing | 38 held | nsubj |
| 20 | of | of | ADP | _ | 22 fable | case |
| 21 | a | a | DET | Definite=Ind PronType=Art | 22 fable | det |
| 22 | fable | fable | NOUN | Number=Sing | 19 start | nmod |
| 23 | by | by | ADP | _ | 24 La | case |
| 24 | La | La | PROPN | Number=Sing | 22 fable | nmod |
| 25 | Fontaine | Fontaine | PROPN | Number=Sing | 24 La | flat |
| 26 | ( | ( | PUNCT | _ | 27 1668 | punct |
| 27 | 1668 | 1668 | NUM | NumForm=Digit NumType=Card | 24 La | appos |
| 28 | ) | ) | PUNCT | _ | 27 1668 | punct |
| 29 | : | : | PUNCT | _ | 31 Crow | punct |
| 30 | Mr | mr | NOUN | Number=Sing | 31 Crow | compound |
| 31 | Crow | crow | NOUN | Number=Sing | 22 fable | conj |
| 32 | , | , | PUNCT | _ | 33 perched | punct |
| 33 | perched | perch | VERB | Tense=Past VerbForm=Part Voice=Pass | 31 Crow | acl |
| 34 | in | in | ADP | _ | 36 tree | case |
| 35 | a | a | DET | Definite=Ind PronType=Art | 36 tree | det |
| 36 | tree | tree | NOUN | Number=Sing | 33 perched | obl |
| 37 | , | , | PUNCT | _ | 19 start | punct |
| 38 | held | hold | VERB | Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | root | root |
| 39 | a | a | DET | Definite=Ind PronType=Art | 40 cheese | det |
| 40 | cheese | cheese | NOUN | Number=Sing | 38 held | obj |
| 41 | in | in | ADP | _ | 43 beak | case |
| 42 | his | his | PRON | Case=Gen Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 Poss=Yes PronType=Prs | 43 beak | nmod:poss |
| 43 | beak | beak | NOUN | Number=Sing | 38 held | obl |
| 44 | ; | ; | PUNCT | _ | 48 tricks | punct |
| 45 | a | a | DET | Definite=Ind PronType=Art | 46 fox | det |
| 46 | fox | fox | NOUN | Number=Sing | 48 tricks | nsubj |
| 47 | later | late | ADV | Degree=Cmp | 48 tricks | advmod |
| 48 | tricks | trick | VERB | Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin | 38 held | conj |
| 49 | him | he | PRON | Case=Acc Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs | 48 tricks | obj |
| 50 | into | into | SCONJ | _ | 51 dropping | mark |
| 51 | dropping | drop | VERB | Tense=Pres VerbForm=Part | 48 tricks | advcl |
| 52 | it | it | PRON | Case=Acc Gender=Neut Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs | 51 dropping | obj |
| 53 | . | . | PUNCT | _ | 19 start | punct |
Pragmatics
No stored speech act for this sentence.
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | is a | present | bec un fromage | the start | of a fable by La and Mr Crow | tree rules | |||
| 2 | perch | participle | Mr Crow not said here | a tree | vn assuming_position-50 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Agent in tree=Location | ||||
| 3 | hold | past | the start | a cheese | start's beak | vn keep-15.2 «NP V NP PP.location»: agent=Agent cheese=Theme in beak=Location | |||
| 4 | trick | present | a fox | start | late property | vn trick-59.2 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent he=Patient | |||
| 5 | drop | gerund | a fox not said here | fox | vn put_direction-9.4 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent it=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.
Licence: CC BY-SA 4.0, as the whole of Mova corpus 0.4, of which this treebank (the agreed school, mova-school-agreed-en.conllu) is part. The lessons were written for Mova's primary school. Sentence school:french:039-olympiad-decoding-a-short-french-text.lesson:8.
The tree: Mova annot: Rust (en) → Haiku 5.5 (medium, Batches API) patches; gates UD 2.18; agreed by treeagree rules (Stanza, Trankit, spaCy trf): R6-punct-agree ×2. The frames are read from the tree by Mova's frames reader (prag) when this page is built, the lesson read in order, so a pronoun may be resolved from an earlier sentence.
See the release 0.4.
This page in Markdown → https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/french/39-olympiad-decoding-a-short-french-text/8/