The Arabian Nights Entertainments, Opening, part 8, sentence 37
We had been travelling for about a month, when one day we saw a cloud of dust moving swiftly towards us; and as soon as it came near, we found that the dust concealed a band of fifty robbers.
Who acts: We, cloud, dust · What happens: travel, see, move, come, find, conceal · To what, where: cloud, band, dust · Speech: someone speaks here
This is a sentence of «The Arabian Nights Entertainments» by Andrew Lang, Opening, part 8. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (We, cloud, dust), 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 | We | we | PRON | Case=Nom Number=Plur Person=1 PronType=Prs | 4 travelling | nsubj |
| 2 | had | have | AUX | Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=1 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | 4 travelling | aux |
| 3 | been | be | AUX | Tense=Past VerbForm=Part | 4 travelling | aux |
| 4 | travelling | travel | VERB | Tense=Pres VerbForm=Part | root | root |
| 5 | for | for | ADP | _ | 8 month | case |
| 6 | about | about | ADV | _ | 8 month | advmod |
| 7 | a | a | DET | Definite=Ind PronType=Art | 8 month | det |
| 8 | month | month | NOUN | Number=Sing | 4 travelling | obl |
| 9 | , | , | PUNCT | _ | 14 saw | punct |
| 10 | when | when | ADV | PronType=Int | 14 saw | advmod |
| 11 | one | one | NUM | NumForm=Word NumType=Card | 12 day | nummod |
| 12 | day | day | NOUN | Number=Sing | 14 saw | obl:unmarked |
| 13 | we | we | PRON | Case=Nom Number=Plur Person=1 PronType=Prs | 14 saw | nsubj |
| 14 | saw | see | VERB | Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=1 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | 4 travelling | parataxis |
| 15 | a | a | DET | Definite=Ind PronType=Art | 16 cloud | det |
| 16 | cloud | cloud | NOUN | Number=Sing | 14 saw | obj |
| 17 | of | of | ADP | _ | 18 dust | case |
| 18 | dust | dust | NOUN | Number=Sing | 16 cloud | nmod |
| 19 | moving | move | VERB | VerbForm=Ger | 16 cloud | acl |
| 20 | swiftly | swiftly | ADV | _ | 19 moving | advmod |
| 21 | towards | towards | ADP | _ | 22 us | case |
| 22 | us | we | PRON | Case=Acc Number=Plur Person=1 PronType=Prs | 19 moving | obl |
| 23 | ; | ; | PUNCT | _ | 26 soon | punct |
| 24 | and | and | CCONJ | _ | 26 soon | cc |
| 25 | as | as | ADV | _ | 26 soon | advmod |
| 26 | soon | soon | ADV | Degree=Pos | 14 saw | advmod |
| 27 | as | as | SCONJ | _ | 29 came | mark |
| 28 | it | it | PRON | Case=Nom Gender=Neut Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs | 29 came | nsubj |
| 29 | came | come | VERB | Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | 26 soon | advcl |
| 30 | near | near | ADV | _ | 29 came | advmod |
| 31 | , | , | PUNCT | _ | 33 found | punct |
| 32 | we | we | PRON | Case=Nom Number=Plur Person=1 PronType=Prs | 33 found | nsubj |
| 33 | found | find | VERB | Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=1 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | 26 soon | advcl |
| 34 | that | that | SCONJ | _ | 37 concealed | mark |
| 35 | the | the | DET | Definite=Def PronType=Art | 36 dust | det |
| 36 | dust | dust | NOUN | Number=Sing | 37 concealed | nsubj |
| 37 | concealed | conceal | VERB | Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | 33 found | ccomp |
| 38 | a | a | DET | Definite=Ind PronType=Art | 39 band | det |
| 39 | band | band | NOUN | Number=Sing | 37 concealed | obj |
| 40 | of | of | ADP | _ | 42 robbers | case |
| 41 | fifty | fifty | NUM | NumForm=Word NumType=Card | 42 robbers | nummod |
| 42 | robbers | robber | NOUN | Number=Plur | 39 band | nmod |
| 43 | . | . | PUNCT | _ | 4 travelling | punct |
Pragmatics
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | travel | past · perfect · progressive | We | month | vn run-51.3.2-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme | ||||
| 2 | see | past | we | a cloud of dust | day | soon property | vn comprehend-87.2-1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Experiencer cloud=Stimulus | ||
| 3 | move | gerund | a cloud of dust not said here | towards us; swiftly property | vn roll-51.3.1 «NP V PP.trajectory»: agent=Theme towards we=Trajectory | ||||
| 4 | come | past | dust | near property | vn escape-51.1-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme | ||||
| 5 | find | past | we | vn declare-29.4-1-1 «NP V what S_INF»: agent=Agent clause=Theme | |||||
| 6 | conceal | past | the dust | a band of fifty robbers | vn concealment-16 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent band=Patient | ||||
| 7 | cloud | dust | nom cloud «phenomenon transitive»: of=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/pg128/8/37/