Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, Chapter III. A Caucus-Race and a Long Tale, sentence 52

The next thing was to eat the comfits: this caused some noise and confusion, as the large birds complained that they could not taste theirs, and the small ones choked and had to be patted on the back.

Who acts: next thing, this, large birds, birds, small ones · What happens: be, cause, complain, not taste, choke, have · To what, where: noise · Speech: someone speaks here

This is a sentence of «Alice's Adventures in Wonderland» by Lewis Carroll, Chapter III. A Caucus-Race and a Long Tale. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (next thing, this, large birds, birds), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

Parsed by Mova, not checked by a teacher. This tree is Mova's own parse (the en model, on the CPU, when the site is built); it 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	3 thing	det
2	next	next	ADJ	Degree=Pos	3 thing	amod
3	thing	thing	NOUN	Number=Sing	6 eat	nsubj
4	was	be	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	6 eat	cop
5	to	to	PART	_	6 eat	mark
6	eat	eat	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	root	root
7	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	8 comfits	det
8	comfits	comfit	NOUN	Number=Plur	6 eat	obj
9	:	:	PUNCT	_	11 caused	punct
10	this	this	PRON	Number=Sing PronType=Dem	11 caused	nsubj
11	caused	cause	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	6 eat	parataxis
12	some	some	DET	PronType=Ind	13 noise	det
13	noise	noise	NOUN	Number=Sing	11 caused	obj
14	and	and	CCONJ	_	15 confusion	cc
15	confusion	confusion	NOUN	Number=Sing	13 noise	conj
16	,	,	PUNCT	_	21 complained	punct
17	as	as	SCONJ	_	21 complained	mark
18	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	20 birds	det
19	large	large	ADJ	Degree=Pos	20 birds	amod
20	birds	bird	NOUN	Number=Plur	21 complained	nsubj
21	complained	complain	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	11 caused	conj
22	that	that	SCONJ	_	26 taste	mark
23	they	they	PRON	Case=Nom Number=Plur Person=3 PronType=Prs	26 taste	nsubj
24	could	could	AUX	VerbForm=Fin	26 taste	aux
25	not	not	PART	Polarity=Neg	26 taste	advmod
26	taste	taste	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	21 complained	ccomp
27	theirs	their	PRON	Number=Plur Person=3 Poss=Yes PronType=Prs	26 taste	obj
28	,	,	PUNCT	_	33 choked	punct
29	and	and	CCONJ	_	33 choked	cc
30	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	32 ones	det
31	small	small	ADJ	Degree=Pos	32 ones	amod
32	ones	one	NOUN	Number=Plur	33 choked	nsubj
33	choked	choke	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	6 eat	parataxis
34	and	and	CCONJ	_	35 had	cc
35	had	have	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	33 choked	conj
36	to	to	PART	_	38 patted	mark
37	be	be	AUX	VerbForm=Inf	38 patted	aux:pass
38	patted	pat	VERB	Tense=Past VerbForm=Part Voice=Pass	35 had	xcomp
39	on	on	ADP	_	41 back	case
40	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	41 back	det
41	back	back	NOUN	Number=Sing	38 patted	obl
42	.	.	PUNCT	_	6 eat	punct

Pragmatics

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	other	roles by
1	is	past	the next thing		eat property	tree rules
2	cause	past	this	some noise and confusion		vn engender-27.1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Precondition noise=Patient
3	complain speech: other	past	the large birds			vn complain-37.8 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent clause=Topic
4	not taste	could	birds = bird	noise		vn seem-109 «NP V ADJ»: agent=Theme their=Attribute
5	choke	past	the small ones			vn die-42.4-1 «NP V»: agent=Patient
6	have	past	the small ones not said here			tree rules
7	pat	to-infinitive · passive	the small ones not said here		on the back	vn touch-20-1 «NP V NP PP.theme PP.instrument»: on back=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: «Alice's Adventures in Wonderland» by Lewis Carroll, Project Gutenberg book 11 (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/pg11/4/52/