More English Fairy Tales, More English Fairy Tales, part 4, sentence 41
Try as he might the butler could not leave hold, nor yet keep the shutters from blowing open as he closed them.
Who acts: you, John · What happens: try, not leave, keep, blow, close · To what, where: hold, shutters
This is a sentence of «More English Fairy Tales» by Joseph Jacobs, More English Fairy Tales, part 4. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (you, John), 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 | Try | try | VERB | Mood=Imp VerbForm=Fin | root | root |
| 2 | as | as | SCONJ | _ | 9 leave | mark |
| 3 | he | he | PRON | Case=Nom Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs | 9 leave | nsubj |
| 4 | might | might | AUX | VerbForm=Fin | 9 leave | aux |
| 5 | the | the | DET | Definite=Def PronType=Art | 6 butler | det |
| 6 | butler | butler | NOUN | Number=Sing | 9 leave | nsubj |
| 7 | could | could | AUX | VerbForm=Fin | 9 leave | aux |
| 8 | not | not | PART | Polarity=Neg | 9 leave | advmod |
| 9 | leave | leave | VERB | VerbForm=Inf | 1 Try | advcl |
| 10 | hold | hold | NOUN | Number=Sing | 9 leave | obj |
| 11 | , | , | PUNCT | _ | 14 keep | punct |
| 12 | nor | nor | CCONJ | Polarity=Neg | 14 keep | cc |
| 13 | yet | yet | ADV | _ | 14 keep | advmod |
| 14 | keep | keep | VERB | Mood=Imp VerbForm=Fin | 1 Try | parataxis |
| 15 | the | the | DET | Definite=Def PronType=Art | 16 shutters | det |
| 16 | shutters | shutter | NOUN | Number=Plur | 14 keep | obj |
| 17 | from | from | SCONJ | _ | 18 blowing | mark |
| 18 | blowing | blow | VERB | Tense=Pres VerbForm=Part | 14 keep | advcl |
| 19 | open | open | ADJ | Degree=Pos | 18 blowing | xcomp |
| 20 | as | as | SCONJ | _ | 22 closed | mark |
| 21 | he | he | PRON | Case=Nom Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs | 22 closed | nsubj |
| 22 | closed | close | VERB | Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | 18 blowing | advcl |
| 23 | them | they | PRON | Case=Acc Number=Plur Person=3 PronType=Prs | 22 closed | obj |
| 24 | . | . | PUNCT | _ | 1 Try | punct |
Pragmatics
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | try | imperative | you not said here | vn amuse-31.1 «NP V ADV-Middle»: agent=Experiencer | |||||
| 2 | not leave | could | John | hold | vn keep-15.2 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent hold=Theme | ||||
| 3 | keep | infinitive | the shutters | yet | vn keep-15.2 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent shutter=Theme | ||||
| 4 | blow | gerund | open property | vn split-23.2 «NP V apart»: agent=Patient | |||||
| 5 | close | past | John | shutters = shutter | vn crane-40.3.2 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent they=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/pg14241/18/41/