Andersen's Fairy Tales, The Happy Family, sentence 8

Neither the chafers, the toads, nor the earth-worms, whom they asked about it could give them any information--none of them had been boiled or laid on a silver dish.

Who acts: chafers · What happens: ask, give, boil, lay · To what, where: earth worms, information, snails, none, silver dish

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 (chafers), 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	Neither	neither	CCONJ	Polarity=Neg	3 chafers	cc:preconj
2	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	3 chafers	det
3	chafers	chafer	NOUN	Number=Plur	20 give	nsubj
4	,	,	PUNCT	_	6 toads	punct
5	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	6 toads	det
6	toads	toad	NOUN	Number=Plur	3 chafers	conj
7	,	,	PUNCT	_	12 worms	punct
8	nor	nor	CCONJ	Polarity=Neg	12 worms	cc
9	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	12 worms	det
10	earth	earth	NOUN	Number=Sing	12 worms	compound
11	-	-	PUNCT	_	10 earth	punct
12	worms	worm	NOUN	Number=Plur	3 chafers	conj
13	,	,	PUNCT	_	14 whom	punct
14	whom	whom	PRON	PronType=Rel	16 asked	obj
15	they	they	PRON	Case=Nom Number=Plur Person=3 PronType=Prs	16 asked	nsubj
16	asked	ask	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	12 worms	acl:relcl
17	about	about	ADP	_	18 it	case
18	it	it	PRON	Case=Acc Gender=Neut Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	16 asked	obl
19	could	could	AUX	VerbForm=Fin	20 give	aux
20	give	give	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	root	root
21	them	they	PRON	Case=Acc Number=Plur Person=3 PronType=Prs	20 give	iobj
22	any	any	DET	PronType=Ind	23 information	det
23	information	information	NOUN	Number=Sing	20 give	obj
24	--	--	PUNCT	_	30 boiled	punct
25	none	none	PRON	PronType=Neg	30 boiled	nsubj:pass
26	of	of	ADP	_	27 them	case
27	them	they	PRON	Case=Acc Number=Plur Person=3 PronType=Prs	25 none	nmod
28	had	have	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	30 boiled	aux
29	been	be	AUX	Tense=Past VerbForm=Part	30 boiled	aux:pass
30	boiled	boil	VERB	Tense=Past VerbForm=Part Voice=Pass	20 give	parataxis
31	or	or	CCONJ	_	32 laid	cc
32	laid	lay	VERB	Tense=Past VerbForm=Part Voice=Pass	30 boiled	conj
33	on	on	ADP	_	36 dish	case
34	a	a	DET	Definite=Ind PronType=Art	36 dish	det
35	silver	silver	NOUN	Number=Sing	36 dish	compound
36	dish	dish	NOUN	Number=Sing	32 laid	obl
37	.	.	PUNCT	_	20 give	punct

Pragmatics

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	other	roles by
1	ask speech: ask	past	chafers = chafer		the earth worms		about house	vn inquire-37.1.2 «NP V NP PP.topic»: agent=Agent whom=Recipient about it=Topic
2	give	could	the chafers and the toads nor the earth worms	any information	snails = snail			vn give-13.1-1 «NP V NP-Dative NP»: agent=Agent they=Recipient information=Theme
3	boil	past · perfect · passive		none				vn cooking-45.3 «NP V NP.patient»: subject=Patient
4	lay	participle				a silver dish		vn put_spatial-9.2 «NP V NP PP.destination»: agent=Agent on dish=Destination

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/pg1597/20/8/