Andersen's Fairy Tales, The Happy Family, sentence 9

The old white snails were the first persons of distinction in the world, that they knew; the forest was planted for their sake, and the manor-house was there that they might be boiled and laid on a silver dish.

Who acts: old white snails, snails, manor house · What happens: be, know, plant, boil, lay · To what, where: first persons, forest, snails, silver dish · Speech: someone speaks here

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 (old white snails, snails, manor house), 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	The	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	4 snails	det
2	old	old	ADJ	Degree=Pos	4 snails	amod
3	white	white	ADJ	Degree=Pos	4 snails	amod
4	snails	snail	NOUN	Number=Plur	8 persons	nsubj
5	were	be	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	8 persons	cop
6	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	8 persons	det
7	first	first	ADJ	Degree=Pos NumForm=Word NumType=Ord	8 persons	amod
8	persons	person	NOUN	Number=Plur	root	root
9	of	of	ADP	_	10 distinction	case
10	distinction	distinction	NOUN	Number=Sing	8 persons	nmod
11	in	in	ADP	_	13 world	case
12	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	13 world	det
13	world	world	NOUN	Number=Sing	10 distinction	nmod
14	,	,	PUNCT	_	17 knew	punct
15	that	that	SCONJ	_	17 knew	mark
16	they	they	PRON	Case=Nom Number=Plur Person=3 PronType=Prs	17 knew	nsubj
17	knew	know	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	8 persons	parataxis
18	;	;	PUNCT	_	22 planted	punct
19	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	20 forest	det
20	forest	forest	NOUN	Number=Sing	22 planted	nsubj:pass
21	was	be	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	22 planted	aux:pass
22	planted	plant	VERB	Tense=Past VerbForm=Part Voice=Pass	17 knew	ccomp
23	for	for	ADP	_	25 sake	case
24	their	their	PRON	Case=Gen Number=Plur Person=3 Poss=Yes PronType=Prs	25 sake	nmod:poss
25	sake	sake	NOUN	Number=Sing	22 planted	obl
26	,	,	PUNCT	_	33 there	punct
27	and	and	CCONJ	_	33 there	cc
28	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	31 house	det
29	manor	manor	NOUN	Number=Sing	31 house	compound
30	-	-	PUNCT	_	29 manor	punct
31	house	house	NOUN	Number=Sing	33 there	nsubj
32	was	be	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	33 there	cop
33	there	there	ADV	PronType=Dem	22 planted	advmod
34	that	that	SCONJ	_	38 boiled	mark
35	they	they	PRON	Case=Nom Number=Plur Person=3 PronType=Prs	38 boiled	nsubj:pass
36	might	might	AUX	VerbForm=Fin	38 boiled	aux
37	be	be	AUX	VerbForm=Inf	38 boiled	aux:pass
38	boiled	boil	VERB	Tense=Past VerbForm=Part Voice=Pass	33 there	advcl
39	and	and	CCONJ	_	40 laid	cc
40	laid	lay	VERB	Tense=Past VerbForm=Part Voice=Pass	38 boiled	conj
41	on	on	ADP	_	44 dish	case
42	a	a	DET	Definite=Ind PronType=Art	44 dish	det
43	silver	silver	NOUN	Number=Sing	44 dish	compound
44	dish	dish	NOUN	Number=Sing	40 laid	obl
45	.	.	PUNCT	_	8 persons	punct

Pragmatics

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	where	other	roles by
1	is a	past	the old white snails	the first persons		of distinction in the world	tree rules
2	know	past	snails = snail				vn comprehend-87.2-1-1-1 «NP V S_ING»: agent=Experiencer clause=Stimulus
3	plant	past · passive		the forest		for snails's sake	vn establish-55.5-1 «NP V NP»: subject=Patient
4	is	past	the manor house			there property	tree rules
5	boil	might · passive		snails = snail			vn cooking-45.3 «NP V NP.patient»: subject=Patient
6	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/pg1597/20/9/