Grimm's Fairy Stories, The Water of Life, sentence 2

There they met an old man, who asked the cause of their grief, and they told him their Father was so ill that he must die, for nothing could save him.

Who acts: sons, old man, Father, nothing · What happens: meet, ask, tell, be, die, save · To what, where: old man, cause, man, Father, grief · Speech: someone speaks here

This is a sentence of «Grimm's Fairy Stories» by Jacob Grimm, The Water of Life. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (sons, old man, Father, nothing), 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	There	there	PRON	PronType=Dem	3 met	expl
2	they	they	PRON	Case=Nom Number=Plur Person=3 PronType=Prs	3 met	nsubj
3	met	meet	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	root	root
4	an	a	DET	Definite=Ind PronType=Art	6 man	det
5	old	old	ADJ	Degree=Pos	6 man	amod
6	man	man	NOUN	Number=Sing	3 met	obj
7	,	,	PUNCT	_	9 asked	punct
8	who	who	PRON	PronType=Rel	9 asked	nsubj
9	asked	ask	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	6 man	acl:relcl
10	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	11 cause	det
11	cause	cause	NOUN	Number=Sing	9 asked	obj
12	of	of	ADP	_	14 grief	case
13	their	their	PRON	Case=Gen Number=Plur Person=3 Poss=Yes PronType=Prs	14 grief	nmod:poss
14	grief	grief	NOUN	Number=Sing	11 cause	nmod
15	,	,	PUNCT	_	18 told	punct
16	and	and	CCONJ	_	18 told	cc
17	they	they	PRON	Case=Nom Number=Plur Person=3 PronType=Prs	18 told	nsubj
18	told	tell	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	3 met	conj
19	him	he	PRON	Case=Acc Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	18 told	iobj
20	their	their	PRON	Case=Gen Number=Plur Person=3 Poss=Yes PronType=Prs	21 Father	nmod:poss
21	Father	Father	PROPN	Number=Sing	24 ill	nsubj
22	was	be	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	24 ill	cop
23	so	so	ADV	_	24 ill	advmod
24	ill	ill	ADJ	Degree=Pos	18 told	ccomp
25	that	that	SCONJ	_	28 die	mark
26	he	he	PRON	Case=Nom Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	28 die	nsubj
27	must	must	AUX	VerbForm=Fin	28 die	aux
28	die	die	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	24 ill	advcl
29	,	,	PUNCT	_	33 save	punct
30	for	for	SCONJ	_	33 save	mark
31	nothing	nothing	PRON	Number=Sing PronType=Neg	33 save	nsubj
32	could	could	AUX	VerbForm=Fin	33 save	aux
33	save	save	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	28 die	conj
34	him	he	PRON	Case=Acc Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	33 save	obj
35	.	.	PUNCT	_	3 met	punct

Pragmatics

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	other	roles by
1	meet	past	sons = son	a old man		there		vn meet-36.3-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent man=Co-Agent
2	ask speech: ask	past	a old man	the cause of sons's grief				vn inquire-37.1.2 «NP V NP.recipient»: agent=Agent cause=Recipient
3	tell speech: assert	past	sons = son		man			vn transfer_mesg-37.1.1-1-1 «NP V NP.recipient»: agent=Agent he=Recipient
4	is	past	sons's Father				ill property	tree rules
5	die	must	Father					vn calibratable_cos-45.6.1 «NP.attribute V»: agent=Attribute
6	save	could	nothing	Father				vn get-13.5.1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent he=Theme
7	cause			sons's grief				nom cause «event transitive»: of=patient

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: «Grimm's Fairy Stories» by Jacob Grimm, Project Gutenberg book 11027 (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/pg11027/17/2/