More English Fairy Tales, More English Fairy Tales, part 10, sentence 28

But he hadn't given one blow, when what should he hear but the pitifullest entreating, and there stood before him a fairy who prayed and beseeched him to spare the tree.

Who acts: bread, fairy · What happens: not give, hear, entreat, stand, pray, beseeche · To what, where: bread, one blow, fairy, tree

This is a sentence of «More English Fairy Tales» by Joseph Jacobs, More English Fairy Tales, part 10. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (bread, fairy), 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	_	5 given	cc
2	he	he	PRON	Case=Nom Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	5 given	nsubj:pass
3	had	have	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	5 given	aux
4	n't	not	PART	Polarity=Neg	5 given	advmod
5	given	give	VERB	Tense=Past VerbForm=Part Voice=Pass	root	root
6	one	one	NUM	NumForm=Word NumType=Card	7 blow	nummod
7	blow	blow	NOUN	Number=Sing	5 given	obj
8	,	,	PUNCT	_	13 hear	punct
9	when	when	SCONJ	_	13 hear	mark
10	what	what	PRON	PronType=Int	13 hear	obj
11	should	should	AUX	VerbForm=Fin	13 hear	aux
12	he	he	PRON	Case=Nom Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	13 hear	nsubj
13	hear	hear	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	7 blow	acl:relcl
14	but	but	CCONJ	_	16 pitifullest	cc
15	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	16 pitifullest	det
16	pitifullest	pitiful	ADJ	Degree=Sup	13 hear	xcomp
17	entreating	entreat	VERB	Tense=Pres VerbForm=Part	16 pitifullest	advcl
18	,	,	PUNCT	_	21 stood	punct
19	and	and	CCONJ	_	21 stood	cc
20	there	there	ADV	PronType=Dem	21 stood	advmod
21	stood	stand	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	5 given	conj
22	before	before	ADP	_	23 him	case
23	him	he	PRON	Case=Acc Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	21 stood	obl
24	a	a	DET	Definite=Ind PronType=Art	25 fairy	det
25	fairy	fairy	NOUN	Number=Sing	21 stood	obl
26	who	who	PRON	PronType=Rel	27 prayed	nsubj
27	prayed	pray	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	25 fairy	acl:relcl
28	and	and	CCONJ	_	29 beseeched	cc
29	beseeched	beseeche	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	27 prayed	conj
30	him	he	PRON	Case=Acc Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	29 beseeched	obj
31	to	to	PART	_	32 spare	mark
32	spare	spare	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	29 beseeched	advcl
33	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	34 tree	det
34	tree	tree	NOUN	Number=Sing	32 spare	obj
35	.	.	PUNCT	_	5 given	punct

Pragmatics

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	not give	past · perfect · passive		bread				vn give-13.1-1 «NP V NP-Dative NP»: subject=Recipient blow=Theme
2	hear	should	bread	one blow			pitiful property	vn see-30.1-1-1 «NP V S»: agent=Experiencer what=Stimulus
3	entreat	gerund	bread not said here					vn urge-58.1-1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent
4	stand	past		a fairy	there	before bread		vn assuming_position-50 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Agent before he=Location
5	pray	past	a fairy					vn long-32.2 «NP V S_INF»: agent=Pivot
6	beseeche	past	a fairy not said here	bread				tree rules
7	spare	to-infinitive	a fairy not said here	the tree				vn bill-54.5 «NP V NP NP.asset»: agent=Agent tree=Asset

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/pg14241/24/28/