The Arabian Nights Entertainments, Opening, part 20, sentence 2

The cord was placed round the Jew's neck, and his feet had already ceased to touch the ground when the voice of the tailor was heard beseeching the executioner to pause one moment and to listen to what he had to say.

Who acts: voice, chief · What happens: place, cease, touch, hear, beseech, pause · To what, where: cord, feet, ground, voice, executioner · Speech: someone speaks here

This is a sentence of «The Arabian Nights Entertainments» by Andrew Lang, Opening, part 20. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (voice, chief), 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	2 cord	det
2	cord	cord	NOUN	Number=Sing	4 placed	nsubj:pass
3	was	be	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	4 placed	aux:pass
4	placed	place	VERB	Tense=Past VerbForm=Part Voice=Pass	root	root
5	round	round	ADP	_	9 neck	case
6	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	7 Jew	det
7	Jew	Jew	PROPN	Number=Sing	9 neck	nmod:poss
8	's	's	PART	_	7 Jew	case
9	neck	neck	NOUN	Number=Sing	4 placed	obl
10	,	,	PUNCT	_	16 ceased	punct
11	and	and	CCONJ	_	16 ceased	cc
12	his	his	PRON	Case=Gen Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 Poss=Yes PronType=Prs	13 feet	nmod:poss
13	feet	foot	NOUN	Number=Plur	16 ceased	nsubj:pass
14	had	have	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	16 ceased	aux
15	already	already	ADV	_	16 ceased	advmod
16	ceased	cease	VERB	Tense=Past VerbForm=Part Voice=Pass	4 placed	conj
17	to	to	PART	_	18 touch	mark
18	touch	touch	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	16 ceased	xcomp
19	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	20 ground	det
20	ground	ground	NOUN	Number=Sing	18 touch	obj
21	when	when	ADV	PronType=Int	28 heard	advmod
22	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	23 voice	det
23	voice	voice	NOUN	Number=Sing	28 heard	nsubj:pass
24	of	of	ADP	_	26 tailor	case
25	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	26 tailor	det
26	tailor	tailor	NOUN	Number=Sing	23 voice	nmod
27	was	be	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	28 heard	aux:pass
28	heard	hear	VERB	Tense=Past VerbForm=Part Voice=Pass	18 touch	advcl
29	beseeching	beseech	VERB	VerbForm=Ger	28 heard	xcomp
30	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	31 executioner	det
31	executioner	executioner	NOUN	Number=Sing	29 beseeching	obj
32	to	to	PART	_	33 pause	mark
33	pause	pause	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	29 beseeching	advcl
34	one	one	NUM	NumForm=Word NumType=Card	35 moment	nummod
35	moment	moment	NOUN	Number=Sing	33 pause	obj
36	and	and	CCONJ	_	38 listen	cc
37	to	to	PART	_	38 listen	mark
38	listen	listen	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	33 pause	conj
39	to	to	ADP	_	40 what	case
40	what	what	PRON	PronType=Rel	38 listen	obl
41	he	he	PRON	Case=Nom Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	42 had	nsubj
42	had	have	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	40 what	acl:relcl
43	to	to	PART	_	44 say	mark
44	say	say	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	42 had	xcomp
45	.	.	PUNCT	_	4 placed	punct

Pragmatics

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	when	other	roles by
1	place	past · passive		the cord		round the Jew's neck	vn put-9.1-2 «NP V PP.destination NP»: subject=Theme
2	cease	past · perfect · passive		chief's feet			tree rules
3	touch	to-infinitive		the ground			vn contiguous_location-47.8-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Theme ground=Co-Theme
4	hear	past · passive		the voice of the tailor			tree rules
5	beseech	gerund	the voice of the tailor not said here	the executioner			tree rules
6	pause	to-infinitive	the voice of the tailor not said here		moment		vn linger-53.1 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Agent
7	listen	to-infinitive	the voice of the tailor not said here				vn peer-30.3 «NP V PP.theme»: agent=Agent to what=Theme
8	have	past	chief				tree rules
9	say speech: assert	to-infinitive	chief not said here				vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent

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.

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