The Arabian Nights Entertainments, Opening, part 4, sentence 34
But when it is a question of the life of a king it is better to sacrifice the innocent than save the guilty.
Who acts: death · What happens: be, sacrifice, save · To what, where: question, innocent, guilty
This is a sentence of «The Arabian Nights Entertainments» by Andrew Lang, Opening, part 4. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (death), 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 | But | but | CCONJ | _ | 6 question | cc |
| 2 | when | when | ADV | PronType=Int | 6 question | advmod |
| 3 | it | it | PRON | Case=Nom Gender=Neut Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs | 6 question | nsubj |
| 4 | is | be | AUX | Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin | 6 question | cop |
| 5 | a | a | DET | Definite=Ind PronType=Art | 6 question | det |
| 6 | question | question | NOUN | Number=Sing | root | root |
| 7 | of | of | ADP | _ | 9 life | case |
| 8 | the | the | DET | Definite=Def PronType=Art | 9 life | det |
| 9 | life | life | NOUN | Number=Sing | 15 better | obl |
| 10 | of | of | ADP | _ | 12 king | case |
| 11 | a | a | DET | Definite=Ind PronType=Art | 12 king | det |
| 12 | king | king | NOUN | Number=Sing | 9 life | nmod |
| 13 | it | it | PRON | Case=Nom Gender=Neut Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs | 15 better | expl |
| 14 | is | be | AUX | Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin | 15 better | cop |
| 15 | better | good | ADJ | Degree=Cmp | 6 question | parataxis |
| 16 | to | to | PART | _ | 17 sacrifice | mark |
| 17 | sacrifice | sacrifice | VERB | VerbForm=Inf | 15 better | csubj |
| 18 | the | the | DET | Definite=Def PronType=Art | 19 innocent | det |
| 19 | innocent | innocent | ADJ | Degree=Pos | 17 sacrifice | obj |
| 20 | than | than | SCONJ | _ | 21 save | mark |
| 21 | save | save | VERB | VerbForm=Inf | 17 sacrifice | advcl |
| 22 | the | the | DET | Definite=Def PronType=Art | 23 guilty | det |
| 23 | guilty | guilty | NOUN | Number=Sing | 21 save | obj |
| 24 | . | . | PUNCT | _ | 6 question | punct |
Pragmatics
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | is a | present | death | a question | tree rules | ||||
| 2 | is | present | of the life of a king; good property | tree rules | |||||
| 3 | sacrifice | to-infinitive | the innocent | vn contribute-13.2-1-1 «NP V NP.theme (PP)»: agent=Agent innocent=Theme | |||||
| 4 | save | infinitive | the guilty | vn get-13.5.1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent guilty=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/pg128/4/34/