The Arabian Nights Entertainments, Opening, part 9, sentence 39

If I chose, I could kill you also; but I will be merciful, and content myself with changing you into a dog, an ass, a lion, or a bird--whichever you prefer."

Who acts: I, lion · What happens: choose, kill, be, content, change, prefer · To what, where: you, myself, whichever

This is a sentence of «The Arabian Nights Entertainments» by Andrew Lang, Opening, part 9. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (I, lion), 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	If	if	SCONJ	_	3 chose	mark
2	I	I	PRON	Case=Nom Number=Sing Person=1 PronType=Prs	3 chose	nsubj
3	chose	choose	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=1 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	root	root
4	,	,	PUNCT	_	7 kill	punct
5	I	I	PRON	Case=Nom Number=Sing Person=1 PronType=Prs	7 kill	nsubj
6	could	could	AUX	VerbForm=Fin	7 kill	aux
7	kill	kill	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	3 chose	ccomp
8	you	you	PRON	Case=Acc Person=2 PronType=Prs	7 kill	obj
9	also	also	ADV	_	7 kill	advmod
10	;	;	PUNCT	_	15 merciful	punct
11	but	but	CCONJ	_	15 merciful	cc
12	I	I	PRON	Case=Nom Number=Sing Person=1 PronType=Prs	15 merciful	nsubj
13	will	will	AUX	VerbForm=Fin	15 merciful	aux
14	be	be	AUX	VerbForm=Inf	15 merciful	cop
15	merciful	merciful	ADJ	Degree=Pos	3 chose	ccomp
16	,	,	PUNCT	_	18 content	punct
17	and	and	CCONJ	_	18 content	cc
18	content	content	VERB	Mood=Imp VerbForm=Fin	15 merciful	parataxis
19	myself	myself	PRON	Case=Acc Number=Sing Person=1 PronType=Prs Reflex=Yes	18 content	obj
20	with	with	SCONJ	_	21 changing	mark
21	changing	change	VERB	Tense=Pres VerbForm=Part	18 content	advcl
22	you	you	PRON	Case=Acc Person=2 PronType=Prs	21 changing	obj
23	into	into	ADP	_	25 dog	case
24	a	a	DET	Definite=Ind PronType=Art	25 dog	det
25	dog	dog	NOUN	Number=Sing	21 changing	obl
26	,	,	PUNCT	_	28 ass	punct
27	an	a	DET	Definite=Ind PronType=Art	28 ass	det
28	ass	ass	NOUN	Number=Sing	25 dog	conj
29	,	,	PUNCT	_	31 lion	punct
30	a	a	DET	Definite=Ind PronType=Art	31 lion	det
31	lion	lion	NOUN	Number=Sing	39 prefer	nsubj
32	,	,	PUNCT	_	35 bird	punct
33	or	or	CCONJ	_	35 bird	cc
34	a	a	DET	Definite=Ind PronType=Art	35 bird	det
35	bird	bird	NOUN	Number=Sing	31 lion	conj
36	--	--	PUNCT	_	39 prefer	punct
37	whichever	whichever	DET	PronType=Rel	39 prefer	obj
38	you	you	PRON	Case=Nom Person=2 PronType=Prs	39 prefer	nsubj
39	prefer	prefer	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	18 content	conj
40	.	.	PUNCT	_	15 merciful	punct
41	"	"	PUNCT	_	3 chose	punct

Pragmatics

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	other	roles by
1	choose	past	I			tree rules
2	kill	could	I	you		vn remove-10.1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent you=Theme
3	is	future	I		merciful property	tree rules
4	content	infinitive		myself		vn amuse-31.1 «NP V NP»: agent=Stimulus myself=Experiencer
5	change	gerund		you	into a dog and a ass result	vn turn-26.6.1-1 «NP V NP.patient PP.result»: agent=Agent you=Patient into dog=Result
6	prefer	present	a lion or a bird	whichever		vn admire-31.2 «NP V NP»: agent=Experiencer whichever=Stimulus

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/pg128/9/39/