Peter Pan, Chapter IX. THE NEVER BIRD, sentence 3

Steadily the waters rose till they were nibbling at his feet; and to pass the time until they made their final gulp, he watched the only thing on the lagoon.

Who acts: waters, sound · What happens: rise, nibble, pass, make, watch, gulp · To what, where: final gulp, only thing, lagoon

This is a sentence of «Peter Pan» by J. M. Barrie, Chapter IX. THE NEVER BIRD. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (waters, sound), 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	Steadily	steadily	ADV	_	4 rose	advmod
2	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	3 waters	det
3	waters	water	NOUN	Number=Plur	4 rose	nsubj
4	rose	rise	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	root	root
5	till	till	SCONJ	_	8 nibbling	mark
6	they	they	PRON	Case=Nom Number=Plur Person=3 PronType=Prs	8 nibbling	nsubj
7	were	be	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	8 nibbling	aux
8	nibbling	nibble	VERB	Tense=Pres VerbForm=Part	4 rose	advcl
9	at	at	ADP	_	11 feet	case
10	his	his	PRON	Case=Gen Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 Poss=Yes PronType=Prs	11 feet	nmod:poss
11	feet	foot	NOUN	Number=Plur	8 nibbling	obl
12	;	;	PUNCT	_	15 pass	punct
13	and	and	CCONJ	_	15 pass	cc
14	to	to	PART	_	15 pass	mark
15	pass	pass	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	4 rose	conj
16	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	17 time	det
17	time	time	NOUN	Number=Sing	15 pass	obj
18	until	until	SCONJ	_	20 made	mark
19	they	they	PRON	Case=Nom Number=Plur Person=3 PronType=Prs	20 made	nsubj
20	made	make	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	15 pass	advcl
21	their	their	PRON	Case=Gen Number=Plur Person=3 Poss=Yes PronType=Prs	23 gulp	nmod:poss
22	final	final	ADJ	Degree=Pos	23 gulp	amod
23	gulp	gulp	NOUN	Number=Sing	20 made	obj
24	,	,	PUNCT	_	26 watched	punct
25	he	he	PRON	Case=Nom Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	26 watched	nsubj
26	watched	watch	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	4 rose	conj
27	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	29 thing	det
28	only	only	ADJ	Degree=Pos	29 thing	amod
29	thing	thing	NOUN	Number=Sing	26 watched	obj
30	on	on	ADP	_	32 lagoon	case
31	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	32 lagoon	det
32	lagoon	lagoon	NOUN	Number=Sing	26 watched	obl
33	.	.	PUNCT	_	4 rose	punct

Pragmatics

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	rise	past	the waters				steadily property	vn assuming_position-50 «NP V»: agent=Agent
2	nibble	past · progressive	waters = water				at sound's feet	vn chew-39.2 «NP V PP»: agent=Agent at foot=Patient
3	pass	to-infinitive	the waters not said here			time		vn occur-48.3-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme
4	make	past	waters = water	waters's final gulp				vn build-26.1-1 «NP.asset V NP»: agent=Asset gulp=Product
5	watch	past	sound	the only thing	the lagoon			vn assessment-34.1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent thing=Theme
6	gulp		waters = water					nom gulp «act transitive»: poss=agent

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: «Peter Pan» by J. M. Barrie, Project Gutenberg book 16 (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/pg16/10/3/