More English Fairy Tales, More English Fairy Tales, part 1, sentence 20

As they were sitting one day in the town hall racking their poor brains, and bewailing their hard fate, who should run in but the town beadle. "

Who acts: Ratcatchers, town hall, hard fate · What happens: sit, rack, bewail, run, fate · To what, where: town hall, poor brains

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 (Ratcatchers, town hall, hard fate), 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	As	as	SCONJ	_	4 sitting	mark
2	they	they	PRON	Case=Nom Number=Plur Person=3 PronType=Prs	4 sitting	nsubj
3	were	be	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	4 sitting	aux
4	sitting	sit	VERB	Tense=Pres VerbForm=Part	root	root
5	one	one	NUM	NumForm=Word NumType=Card	6 day	nummod
6	day	day	NOUN	Number=Sing	4 sitting	obl:unmarked
7	in	in	ADP	_	10 hall	case
8	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	10 hall	det
9	town	town	NOUN	Number=Sing	10 hall	compound
10	hall	hall	NOUN	Number=Sing	4 sitting	obl
11	racking	rack	VERB	VerbForm=Ger	10 hall	acl
12	their	their	PRON	Case=Gen Number=Plur Person=3 Poss=Yes PronType=Prs	14 brains	nmod:poss
13	poor	poor	ADJ	Degree=Pos	14 brains	amod
14	brains	brain	NOUN	Number=Plur	11 racking	obj
15	,	,	PUNCT	_	17 bewailing	punct
16	and	and	CCONJ	_	17 bewailing	cc
17	bewailing	bewail	VERB	Tense=Pres VerbForm=Part	4 sitting	conj
18	their	their	PRON	Case=Gen Number=Plur Person=3 Poss=Yes PronType=Prs	20 fate	nmod:poss
19	hard	hard	ADJ	Degree=Pos	20 fate	amod
20	fate	fate	NOUN	Number=Sing	24 run	nsubj
21	,	,	PUNCT	_	24 run	punct
22	who	who	PRON	PronType=Rel	24 run	nsubj
23	should	should	AUX	VerbForm=Fin	24 run	aux
24	run	run	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	17 bewailing	parataxis
25	in	in	ADV	_	24 run	advmod
26	but	but	CCONJ	_	29 beadle	cc
27	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	29 beadle	det
28	town	town	NOUN	Number=Sing	29 beadle	compound
29	beadle	beadle	NOUN	Number=Sing	4 sitting	conj
30	.	.	PUNCT	_	29 beadle	punct
31	"	"	PUNCT	_	29 beadle	punct

Pragmatics

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	where	when	roles by
1	sit	past · progressive	Ratcatchers = ratcatcher		the town hall	day	vn assuming_position-50 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Agent in hall=Location
2	rack	gerund	the town hall not said here	Ratcatchers's poor brains			vn destroy-44 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent brain=Patient
3	bewail	gerund	Ratcatchers = ratcatcher not said here				vn admire-31.2 «NP V that S»: agent=Experiencer
4	run	should	Ratcatchers's hard fate				vn run-51.3.2-2-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme
5	fate		Ratcatchers = ratcatcher				nom fate «event transitive»: poss=agent

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/pg14241/15/20/