The Arabian Nights Entertainments, Opening, part 17, sentence 67
I replied that nothing would please me better than to tell them, but that I was starving, and would fain eat something first.
Who acts: I, nothing · What happens: reply, please, tell, starve, fain, eat · To what, where: me, eyes, something · Speech: someone speaks here
This is a sentence of «The Arabian Nights Entertainments» by Andrew Lang, Opening, part 17. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (I, 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 | I | I | PRON | Case=Nom Number=Sing Person=1 PronType=Prs | 2 replied | nsubj |
| 2 | replied | reply | VERB | Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=1 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | root | root |
| 3 | that | that | SCONJ | _ | 6 please | mark |
| 4 | nothing | nothing | PRON | Number=Sing PronType=Neg | 6 please | nsubj |
| 5 | would | would | AUX | VerbForm=Fin | 6 please | aux |
| 6 | please | please | VERB | VerbForm=Inf | 2 replied | ccomp |
| 7 | me | I | PRON | Case=Acc Number=Sing Person=1 PronType=Prs | 6 please | obj |
| 8 | better | good | ADJ | Degree=Cmp | 6 please | xcomp |
| 9 | than | than | SCONJ | _ | 11 tell | mark |
| 10 | to | to | PART | _ | 11 tell | mark |
| 11 | tell | tell | VERB | VerbForm=Inf | 8 better | advcl |
| 12 | them | they | PRON | Case=Acc Number=Plur Person=3 PronType=Prs | 11 tell | iobj |
| 13 | , | , | PUNCT | _ | 18 starving | punct |
| 14 | but | but | CCONJ | _ | 18 starving | cc |
| 15 | that | that | SCONJ | _ | 18 starving | mark |
| 16 | I | I | PRON | Case=Nom Number=Sing Person=1 PronType=Prs | 18 starving | nsubj |
| 17 | was | be | AUX | Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=1 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | 18 starving | aux |
| 18 | starving | starve | VERB | Tense=Pres VerbForm=Part | 2 replied | advcl |
| 19 | , | , | PUNCT | _ | 22 fain | punct |
| 20 | and | and | CCONJ | _ | 22 fain | cc |
| 21 | would | would | AUX | VerbForm=Fin | 22 fain | aux |
| 22 | fain | fain | VERB | VerbForm=Inf | 2 replied | conj |
| 23 | eat | eat | VERB | VerbForm=Inf | 22 fain | xcomp |
| 24 | something | something | PRON | Number=Sing PronType=Ind | 23 eat | obj |
| 25 | first | first | ADV | NumForm=Word NumType=Ord | 23 eat | advmod |
| 26 | . | . | PUNCT | _ | 2 replied | punct |
Pragmatics
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | reply speech: assert | past | I | vn say-37.7-1 «NP V how S»: agent=Agent clause=Topic | |||||
| 2 | please | would | nothing | me | good property | vn amuse-31.1 «NP V NP»: agent=Stimulus i=Experiencer | |||
| 3 | tell speech: assert | to-infinitive | nothing not said here | eyes = eye | vn transfer_mesg-37.1.1-1-1 «NP V NP.recipient»: agent=Agent they=Recipient | ||||
| 4 | starve | past · progressive | I | tree rules | |||||
| 5 | fain | would | I not said here | tree rules | |||||
| 6 | eat | infinitive | I not said here | something | first property | vn eat-39.1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent something=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: «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/pg128/17/67/