More English Fairy Tales, More English Fairy Tales, part 1, sentence 18

But do what they might, cats or poison, terrier or traps, there seemed to be more rats than ever, and every day a fresh rat was cocking his tail or pricking his whiskers.

Who acts: fresh rat · What happens: seem, be, cock, prick · To what, where: more rats, tail, whiskers

This is a sentence of «More English Fairy Tales» by Joseph Jacobs, More English Fairy Tales, part 1. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (fresh rat), 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	_	3 what	cc
2	do	do	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=1 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	3 what	aux
3	what	what	PRON	PronType=Int	root	root
4	they	they	PRON	Case=Nom Number=Plur Person=3 PronType=Prs	5 might	nsubj
5	might	might	AUX	VerbForm=Fin	3 what	acl:relcl
6	,	,	PUNCT	_	7 cats	punct
7	cats	cat	NOUN	Number=Plur	3 what	appos
8	or	or	CCONJ	_	9 poison	cc
9	poison	poison	NOUN	Number=Sing	7 cats	conj
10	,	,	PUNCT	_	11 terrier	punct
11	terrier	terrier	NOUN	Number=Sing	7 cats	conj
12	or	or	CCONJ	_	13 traps	cc
13	traps	trap	NOUN	Number=Plur	11 terrier	conj
14	,	,	PUNCT	_	16 seemed	punct
15	there	there	PRON	PronType=Dem	16 seemed	expl
16	seemed	seem	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	3 what	acl:relcl
17	to	to	PART	_	20 rats	mark
18	be	be	AUX	VerbForm=Inf	20 rats	cop
19	more	more	ADJ	Degree=Cmp	20 rats	amod
20	rats	rat	NOUN	Number=Plur	16 seemed	xcomp
21	than	than	ADP	_	22 ever	case
22	ever	ever	ADV	PronType=Ind	20 rats	nmod
23	,	,	PUNCT	_	31 cocking	punct
24	and	and	CCONJ	_	31 cocking	cc
25	every	every	DET	PronType=Tot	26 day	det
26	day	day	NOUN	Number=Sing	31 cocking	obl:unmarked
27	a	a	DET	Definite=Ind PronType=Art	29 rat	det
28	fresh	fresh	ADJ	Degree=Pos	29 rat	amod
29	rat	rat	NOUN	Number=Sing	31 cocking	nsubj
30	was	be	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	31 cocking	aux
31	cocking	cock	VERB	Tense=Pres VerbForm=Part	16 seemed	xcomp
32	his	his	PRON	Case=Gen Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 Poss=Yes PronType=Prs	33 tail	nmod:poss
33	tail	tail	NOUN	Number=Sing	31 cocking	obj
34	or	or	CCONJ	_	35 pricking	cc
35	pricking	prick	VERB	Tense=Pres VerbForm=Part	31 cocking	conj
36	his	his	PRON	Case=Gen Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 Poss=Yes PronType=Prs	37 whiskers	nmod:poss
37	whiskers	whisker	NOUN	Number=Plur	35 pricking	obj
38	.	.	PUNCT	_	3 what	punct

Pragmatics

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	where	when	roles by
1	seem	past			there		vn seem-109-1-1-1 «NP V S_INF»: agent=Theme clause=Attribute
2	is a	to-infinitive		more rats			tree rules
3	cock	past · progressive	a fresh rat	end's tail		day	vn crane-40.3.2 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent tail=Patient
4	prick	gerund	a fresh rat not said here	end's whiskers			vn hurt-40.8.3-2 «NP V NP»: agent=Experiencer whisker=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: «More English Fairy Tales» by Joseph Jacobs, Project Gutenberg book 14241 (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/pg14241/15/18/