The Arabian Nights Entertainments, Opening, part 40, sentence 72

"Can you possibly understand what the Sultan saw in that little cat," said one to the other, "for him to be so fascinated by her?"

Who acts: you, Sultan, one, cat · What happens: understand, see, say, fascinate · To what, where: Sultan · Speech: someone speaks here

This is a sentence of «The Arabian Nights Entertainments» by Andrew Lang, Opening, part 40. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (you, Sultan, one, cat), 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	"	"	PUNCT	_	5 understand	punct
2	Can	can	AUX	VerbForm=Fin	5 understand	aux
3	you	you	PRON	Case=Nom Person=2 PronType=Prs	5 understand	nsubj
4	possibly	possibly	ADV	_	5 understand	advmod
5	understand	understand	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=1 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	16 said	ccomp
6	what	what	PRON	PronType=Int	9 saw	obj
7	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	8 Sultan	det
8	Sultan	Sultan	PROPN	Number=Sing	9 saw	nsubj
9	saw	see	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	5 understand	ccomp
10	in	in	ADP	_	13 cat	case
11	that	that	DET	Number=Sing PronType=Dem	13 cat	det
12	little	little	ADJ	Degree=Pos	13 cat	amod
13	cat	cat	NOUN	Number=Sing	9 saw	obl
14	,	,	PUNCT	_	5 understand	punct
15	"	"	PUNCT	_	5 understand	punct
16	said	say	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	root	root
17	one	one	NUM	NumForm=Word NumType=Card	16 said	nsubj
18	to	to	ADP	_	20 other	case
19	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	20 other	det
20	other	other	ADJ	Degree=Pos	17 one	nmod
21	,	,	PUNCT	_	16 said	punct
22	"	"	PUNCT	_	16 said	punct
23	for	for	SCONJ	_	28 fascinated	mark
24	him	he	PRON	Case=Acc Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	28 fascinated	nsubj:pass
25	to	to	PART	_	28 fascinated	mark
26	be	be	AUX	VerbForm=Inf	28 fascinated	aux:pass
27	so	so	ADV	_	28 fascinated	advmod
28	fascinated	fascinate	VERB	Tense=Past VerbForm=Part Voice=Pass	16 said	ccomp
29	by	by	ADP	_	30 her	case
30	her	she	PRON	Case=Acc Gender=Fem Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	28 fascinated	obl
31	?	?	PUNCT	_	16 said	punct
32	"	"	PUNCT	_	16 said	punct

Pragmatics

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	other	roles by
1	understand in a quote	can	you		possibly property	vn comprehend-87.2-1-1-1 «NP V how S_INF»: agent=Experiencer clause=Stimulus
2	see in a quote	past	the Sultan		in that little cat	vn comprehend-87.2-1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Experiencer what=Stimulus
3	say speech: ask	past	one to the other			vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent clause=Topic
4	fascinate in a quote	to-infinitive · passive	cat	Sultan		vn amuse-31.1 «NP V NP»: agent=Stimulus subject=Experiencer

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/pg128/40/72/