More English Fairy Tales, LXXII. King John and the Abbot, sentence 12

_--Riddles were once on a time serious things to meddle with, as witness Samson and the Sphynx, and other instances duly noted with his customary erudition by Prof.

Who acts: Riddles, Prof · What happens: be, note · To what, where: other

This is a sentence of «More English Fairy Tales» by Joseph Jacobs, LXXII. King John and the Abbot. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Riddles, Prof), 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	_	_	PUNCT	_	12 meddle	punct
2	--	--	PUNCT	_	12 meddle	punct
3	Riddles	riddle	NOUN	Number=Plur	12 meddle	nsubj
4	were	be	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	12 meddle	cop
5	once	once	ADV	NumForm=Word NumType=Mult	12 meddle	advmod
6	on	on	ADP	_	8 time	case
7	a	a	DET	Definite=Ind PronType=Art	8 time	det
8	time	time	NOUN	Number=Sing	12 meddle	obl
9	serious	serious	ADJ	Degree=Pos	10 things	amod
10	things	thing	NOUN	Number=Plur	12 meddle	nsubj
11	to	to	PART	_	12 meddle	mark
12	meddle	meddle	VERB	Mood=Imp VerbForm=Fin	root	root
13	with	with	ADP	_	12 meddle	obl
14	,	,	PUNCT	_	17 Samson	punct
15	as	as	ADP	_	17 Samson	case
16	witness	witness	NOUN	Number=Sing	17 Samson	compound
17	Samson	Samson	PROPN	Number=Sing	12 meddle	obl
18	and	and	CCONJ	_	20 Sphynx	cc
19	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	20 Sphynx	det
20	Sphynx	Sphynx	PROPN	Number=Sing	17 Samson	conj
21	,	,	PUNCT	_	26 noted	punct
22	and	and	CCONJ	_	26 noted	cc
23	other	other	ADJ	Degree=Pos	26 noted	nsubj:pass
24	instances	instance	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	26 noted	aux
25	duly	duly	ADV	_	26 noted	advmod
26	noted	note	VERB	Tense=Past VerbForm=Part Voice=Pass	17 Samson	acl
27	with	with	ADP	_	30 erudition	case
28	his	his	PRON	Case=Gen Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 Poss=Yes PronType=Prs	30 erudition	nmod:poss
29	customary	customary	NOUN	Number=Sing	30 erudition	compound
30	erudition	erudition	NOUN	Number=Sing	26 noted	obl
31	by	by	ADP	_	32 Prof	case
32	Prof	Prof	PROPN	Number=Sing	26 noted	obl
33	.	.	PUNCT	_	12 meddle	punct

Pragmatics

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	is	past	Riddles				time	as witness Samson and the Sphynx; meddle, once property	tree rules
2	note	present · passive	Prof	other				with Sphynx's customary erudition; duly property	vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V NP.topic»: agent=Agent subject=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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