More English Fairy Tales, More English Fairy Tales, part 8, sentence 6

A many came to her asking foolish things, as was their nature, and to them she never gave counsel--at least of a kind that could aid them much.

Who acts: many, woman, kind · What happens: come, ask, be, not give, aid · To what, where: asking foolish things, counsel, things

This is a sentence of «More English Fairy Tales» by Joseph Jacobs, More English Fairy Tales, part 8. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (many, woman, kind), 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	A	a	DET	Definite=Ind PronType=Art	2 many	det
2	many	many	ADJ	Degree=Pos	3 came	nsubj
3	came	come	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	root	root
4	to	to	ADP	_	8 things	case
5	her	her	PRON	Case=Gen Gender=Fem Number=Sing Person=3 Poss=Yes PronType=Prs	8 things	nmod:poss
6	asking	ask	VERB	VerbForm=Ger	8 things	amod
7	foolish	foolish	ADJ	Degree=Pos	8 things	amod
8	things	thing	NOUN	Number=Plur	3 came	obl
9	,	,	PUNCT	_	13 nature	punct
10	as	as	ADP	_	13 nature	case
11	was	be	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	13 nature	cop
12	their	their	PRON	Case=Gen Number=Plur Person=3 Poss=Yes PronType=Prs	13 nature	nmod:poss
13	nature	nature	NOUN	Number=Sing	3 came	obl
14	,	,	PUNCT	_	20 gave	punct
15	and	and	CCONJ	_	20 gave	cc
16	to	to	ADP	_	17 them	case
17	them	they	PRON	Case=Acc Number=Plur Person=3 PronType=Prs	20 gave	obl
18	she	she	PRON	Case=Nom Gender=Fem Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	20 gave	nsubj
19	never	never	ADV	PronType=Neg	20 gave	advmod
20	gave	give	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	3 came	conj
21	counsel	counsel	NOUN	Number=Sing	20 gave	obj
22	--	--	PUNCT	_	27 kind	punct
23	at	at	ADP	_	24 least	case
24	least	least	ADJ	Degree=Sup	27 kind	nmod
25	of	of	ADP	_	27 kind	case
26	a	a	DET	Definite=Ind PronType=Art	27 kind	det
27	kind	kind	NOUN	Number=Sing	20 gave	obj
28	that	that	PRON	PronType=Rel	30 aid	nsubj
29	could	could	AUX	VerbForm=Fin	30 aid	aux
30	aid	aid	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	27 kind	acl:relcl
31	them	they	PRON	Case=Acc Number=Plur Person=3 PronType=Prs	30 aid	obj
32	much	much	ADV	_	30 aid	advmod
33	.	.	PUNCT	_	3 came	punct

Pragmatics

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	other	roles by
1	come	past	a many			woman's asking foolish things		vn escape-51.1-1 «NP V PP.initial_location»: agent=Theme to thing=Initial_Location
2	ask speech: ask	gerund						vn inquire-37.1.2 «NP V»: agent=Agent
3	is	past					as things's nature	tree rules
4	not give	past	woman	counsel	things = thing			vn give-13.1-1 «NP V NP-Dative NP»: agent=Agent counsel=Recipient kind=Theme
5	aid	could	a kind	things = thing				vn help-72.1-1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent they=Beneficiary

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/pg14241/22/6/