More English Fairy Tales, More English Fairy Tales, part 4, sentence 76

They said they could not positively inform me, but if I went to Sir Gammer Vans he could tell me all about it. "

Who acts: women, I, dead · What happens: say, not inform, go, tell · To what, where: me, Sir Gammer Vans · Speech: someone speaks here

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 (women, I, dead), 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	They	they	PRON	Case=Nom Number=Plur Person=3 PronType=Prs	2 said	nsubj
2	said	say	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	root	root
3	they	they	PRON	Case=Nom Number=Plur Person=3 PronType=Prs	7 inform	nsubj
4	could	could	AUX	VerbForm=Fin	7 inform	aux
5	not	not	PART	Polarity=Neg	7 inform	advmod
6	positively	positively	ADV	_	7 inform	advmod
7	inform	inform	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	2 said	ccomp
8	me	I	PRON	Case=Acc Number=Sing Person=1 PronType=Prs	7 inform	iobj
9	,	,	PUNCT	_	20 tell	punct
10	but	but	CCONJ	_	20 tell	cc
11	if	if	SCONJ	_	13 went	mark
12	I	I	PRON	Case=Nom Number=Sing Person=1 PronType=Prs	13 went	nsubj
13	went	go	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=1 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	20 tell	advcl
14	to	to	ADP	_	17 Vans	case
15	Sir	Sir	PROPN	Number=Sing	17 Vans	compound
16	Gammer	Gammer	PROPN	Number=Sing	17 Vans	compound
17	Vans	Van	PROPN	Number=Plur	13 went	obl
18	he	he	PRON	Case=Nom Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	20 tell	nsubj
19	could	could	AUX	VerbForm=Fin	20 tell	aux
20	tell	tell	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	2 said	ccomp
21	me	I	PRON	Case=Acc Number=Sing Person=1 PronType=Prs	20 tell	iobj
22	all	all	ADV	_	24 it	advmod
23	about	about	ADP	_	24 it	case
24	it	it	PRON	Case=Acc Gender=Neut Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	20 tell	obl
25	.	.	PUNCT	_	20 tell	punct
26	"	"	PUNCT	_	20 tell	punct

Pragmatics

#	verb	tense, mood	who	to whom	where	other	roles by
1	say speech: assert	past	women = woman				vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent clause=Topic
2	not inform speech: other	could	women = woman	me		positively property	vn tell-37.2 «NP V NP.recipient»: agent=Agent i=Recipient
3	go a condition, not said to happen	past	I		Sir Gammer Vans		vn escape-51.1-1 «NP V PP.initial_location»: agent=Theme to van=Initial_Location
4	tell speech: assert	could	dead	me		about o'clock	vn transfer_mesg-37.1.1-1-1 «NP V NP S_ING»: agent=Agent i=Recipient about it=Topic

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.

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