Andersen's Fairy Tales, The Happy Family, sentence 36

But we might give the ants a commission to look out for us; they run to and fro as if they had something to do, and they certainly know of a wife for our little snail!”

Who acts: we, snails · What happens: give, look out, run, fro, have, do · To what, where: ants, something

This is a sentence of «Andersen's Fairy Tales» by H. C. Andersen, The Happy Family. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (we, snails), 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	_	4 give	cc
2	we	we	PRON	Case=Nom Number=Plur Person=1 PronType=Prs	4 give	nsubj
3	might	might	AUX	VerbForm=Fin	4 give	aux
4	give	give	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	root	root
5	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	6 ants	det
6	ants	ant	NOUN	Number=Plur	4 give	iobj
7	a	a	DET	Definite=Ind PronType=Art	8 commission	det
8	commission	commission	NOUN	Number=Sing	6 ants	nmod:unmarked
9	to	to	PART	_	10 look	mark
10	look	look	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	4 give	advcl
11	out	out	ADP	_	10 look	compound:prt
12	for	for	ADP	_	13 us	case
13	us	we	PRON	Case=Acc Number=Plur Person=1 PronType=Prs	10 look	obl
14	;	;	PUNCT	_	16 run	punct
15	they	they	PRON	Case=Nom Number=Plur Person=3 PronType=Prs	16 run	nsubj
16	run	run	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	4 give	parataxis
17	to	to	ADP	_	16 run	case
18	and	and	CCONJ	_	19 fro	cc
19	fro	fro	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	16 run	conj
20	as	as	SCONJ	_	23 had	mark
21	if	if	SCONJ	_	23 had	mark
22	they	they	PRON	Case=Nom Number=Plur Person=3 PronType=Prs	23 had	nsubj
23	had	have	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	19 fro	ccomp
24	something	something	PRON	Number=Sing PronType=Ind	23 had	obj
25	to	to	PART	_	26 do	mark
26	do	do	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	24 something	acl
27	,	,	PUNCT	_	31 know	punct
28	and	and	CCONJ	_	31 know	cc
29	they	they	PRON	Case=Nom Number=Plur Person=3 PronType=Prs	31 know	nsubj
30	certainly	certainly	ADV	_	31 know	advmod
31	know	know	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	4 give	parataxis
32	of	of	ADP	_	34 wife	case
33	a	a	DET	Definite=Ind PronType=Art	34 wife	det
34	wife	wife	NOUN	Number=Sing	31 know	obl
35	for	for	ADP	_	38 snail	case
36	our	our	PRON	Case=Gen Number=Plur Person=1 Poss=Yes PronType=Prs	38 snail	nmod:poss
37	little	little	ADJ	Degree=Pos	38 snail	amod
38	snail	snail	NOUN	Number=Sing	34 wife	nmod
39	!	!	PUNCT	_	4 give	punct
40	”	"	PUNCT	_	4 give	punct

Pragmatics

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	other	roles by
1	give	might	we		the ants a commission		vn give-13.1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent ant=Theme
2	look out	to-infinitive	we not said here			for us	vn caring-75.2-2 «NP V PP»: agent=Agent for we=Theme
3	run	present	snails = snail				vn run-51.3.2-2-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme
4	fro	infinitive	snails = snail not said here				tree rules
5	have a condition, not said to happen	past	snails = snail	something			vn birth-28.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent something=Patient
6	do	to-infinitive	snails = snail not said here	something not said here			vn act-114-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent
7	know	present	snails = snail			of a wife for our little snail; certainly property	vn comprehend-87.2-1-1-1 «NP V PP.stimulus»: agent=Experiencer of wife=Stimulus

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: «Andersen's Fairy Tales» by H. C. Andersen, Project Gutenberg book 1597 (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/pg1597/20/36/