The Arabian Nights Entertainments, Opening, part 2, sentence 55

They greeted one another, and then the old man said to him, "May I ask, brother, what brought you to this desert place, where there are so many evil genii about?

Who acts: children, old man, brother · What happens: greet, say, ask, bring · To what, where: one, merchant, brother, desert place · Speech: someone speaks here

This is a sentence of «The Arabian Nights Entertainments» by Andrew Lang, Opening, part 2. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (children, old man, brother), 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	They	they	PRON	Case=Nom Number=Plur Person=3 PronType=Prs	2 greeted	nsubj
2	greeted	greet	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	root	root
3	one	one	NUM	NumForm=Word NumType=Card	2 greeted	obj
4	another	another	DET	PronType=Ind	3 one	fixed
5	,	,	PUNCT	_	11 said	punct
6	and	and	CCONJ	_	11 said	cc
7	then	then	ADV	PronType=Dem	11 said	advmod
8	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	10 man	det
9	old	old	ADJ	Degree=Pos	10 man	amod
10	man	man	NOUN	Number=Sing	11 said	nsubj
11	said	say	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	2 greeted	parataxis
12	to	to	ADP	_	13 him	case
13	him	he	PRON	Case=Acc Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	11 said	obl
14	,	,	PUNCT	_	18 ask	punct
15	"	"	PUNCT	_	18 ask	punct
16	May	may	AUX	VerbForm=Fin	18 ask	aux
17	I	I	PRON	Case=Nom Number=Sing Person=1 PronType=Prs	18 ask	nsubj
18	ask	ask	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	11 said	conj
19	,	,	PUNCT	_	20 brother	punct
20	brother	brother	NOUN	Number=Sing	18 ask	obj
21	,	,	PUNCT	_	23 brought	punct
22	what	what	PRON	PronType=Int	23 brought	nsubj
23	brought	bring	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	20 brother	acl:relcl
24	you	you	PRON	Case=Acc Person=2 PronType=Prs	23 brought	obj
25	to	to	ADP	_	28 place	case
26	this	this	DET	Number=Sing PronType=Dem	28 place	det
27	desert	desert	NOUN	Number=Sing	28 place	compound
28	place	place	NOUN	Number=Sing	23 brought	obl
29	,	,	PUNCT	_	32 are	punct
30	where	where	ADV	PronType=Rel	32 are	advmod
31	there	there	PRON	PronType=Dem	32 are	expl
32	are	be	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	28 place	acl:relcl
33	so	so	ADV	_	34 many	advmod
34	many	many	ADJ	Degree=Pos	36 genii	amod
35	evil	evil	ADJ	Degree=Pos	36 genii	amod
36	genii	genii	NOUN	Number=Plur	32 are	nsubj
37	about	about	ADP	_	36 genii	nmod
38	?	?	PUNCT	_	2 greeted	punct

Pragmatics

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	roles by
1	greet speech: greet	past	children = child	one				vn judgment-33.1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent one=Theme
2	say speech: ask	past	the old man		merchant		then	vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V PP.recipient S-Quote»: agent=Agent to he=Recipient
3	ask speech: ask in a quote	may	the old man = man		brother			vn inquire-37.1.2 «NP V NP.recipient»: agent=Agent brother=Recipient
4	bring in a quote	past	brother	merchant		this desert place		vn bring-11.3-1 «NP V NP PP.destination»: agent=Agent you=Theme to place=Destination

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/pg128/2/55/