The Arabian Nights Entertainments, Opening, part 14, sentence 77

Chattering meanwhile in a language we could not understand, and clutching at ropes and gangways, they swarmed up the ship's side with such speed and agility that they almost seemed to fly.

Who acts: gangways, we · What happens: chatter, not understand, clutch, swarm up, seem, fly · To what, where: language, ropes, side

This is a sentence of «The Arabian Nights Entertainments» by Andrew Lang, Opening, part 14. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (gangways, we), 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	Chattering	chatter	VERB	VerbForm=Ger	19 swarmed	advcl
2	meanwhile	meanwhile	ADV	_	1 Chattering	advmod
3	in	in	ADP	_	5 language	case
4	a	a	DET	Definite=Ind PronType=Art	5 language	det
5	language	language	NOUN	Number=Sing	1 Chattering	obl
6	we	we	PRON	Case=Nom Number=Plur Person=1 PronType=Prs	9 understand	nsubj
7	could	could	AUX	VerbForm=Fin	9 understand	aux
8	not	not	PART	Polarity=Neg	9 understand	advmod
9	understand	understand	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	5 language	acl:relcl
10	,	,	PUNCT	_	12 clutching	punct
11	and	and	CCONJ	_	12 clutching	cc
12	clutching	clutch	VERB	VerbForm=Ger	1 Chattering	conj
13	at	at	ADP	_	14 ropes	case
14	ropes	rope	NOUN	Number=Plur	12 clutching	obl
15	and	and	CCONJ	_	16 gangways	cc
16	gangways	gangway	NOUN	Number=Plur	14 ropes	conj
17	,	,	PUNCT	_	1 Chattering	punct
18	they	they	PRON	Case=Nom Number=Plur Person=3 PronType=Prs	19 swarmed	nsubj
19	swarmed	swarm	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	root	root
20	up	up	ADP	_	19 swarmed	compound:prt
21	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	22 ship	det
22	ship	ship	NOUN	Number=Sing	24 side	nmod:poss
23	's	's	PART	_	22 ship	case
24	side	side	NOUN	Number=Sing	19 swarmed	obj
25	with	with	ADP	_	27 speed	case
26	such	such	ADJ	Degree=Pos	27 speed	amod
27	speed	speed	NOUN	Number=Sing	19 swarmed	obl
28	and	and	CCONJ	_	29 agility	cc
29	agility	agility	NOUN	Number=Sing	27 speed	conj
30	that	that	SCONJ	_	33 seemed	mark
31	they	they	PRON	Case=Nom Number=Plur Person=3 PronType=Prs	33 seemed	nsubj
32	almost	almost	ADV	_	33 seemed	advmod
33	seemed	seem	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	19 swarmed	advcl
34	to	to	PART	_	35 fly	mark
35	fly	fly	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	33 seemed	xcomp
36	.	.	PUNCT	_	19 swarmed	punct

Pragmatics

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	where	other	roles by
1	chatter	gerund	gangways = gangway not said here		a language	meanwhile property	vn sound_emission-43.2 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Theme in language=Location
2	not understand	could	we	a language not said here			vn comprehend-87.2-1-1-1 «NP V NP PP.attribute»: agent=Experiencer language=Stimulus
3	clutch	gerund	gangways = gangway not said here		ropes and gangways		vn hold-15.1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent
4	swarm up	past	gangways = gangway	the ship's side		with such speed and agility	vn swarm-47.5.1-1 «PP.location V NP»: agent=Location side=Theme
5	seem	past	gangways = gangway			almost property	vn seem-109-1-1-1 «NP V S_INF»: agent=Theme clause=Attribute
6	fly	to-infinitive	gangways = gangway not said here				vn spatial_configuration-47.6-1 «NP V»: agent=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 Arabian Nights Entertainments» by Andrew Lang, Project Gutenberg book 128 (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/pg128/14/77/