Peter Pan, Chapter IX. THE NEVER BIRD, sentence 6

It was not really a piece of paper; it was the Never bird, making desperate efforts to reach Peter on the nest.

Who acts: thing · What happens: not be, make, reach · To what, where: piece, bird, desperate efforts, Peter, nest

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 (thing), 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	It	it	PRON	Case=Nom Gender=Neut Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	6 piece	nsubj
2	was	be	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	6 piece	cop
3	not	not	PART	Polarity=Neg	6 piece	advmod
4	really	really	ADV	_	6 piece	advmod
5	a	a	DET	Definite=Ind PronType=Art	6 piece	det
6	piece	piece	NOUN	Number=Sing	root	root
7	of	of	ADP	_	8 paper	case
8	paper	paper	NOUN	Number=Sing	6 piece	nmod
9	;	;	PUNCT	_	14 bird	punct
10	it	it	PRON	Case=Nom Gender=Neut Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	14 bird	nsubj
11	was	be	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	14 bird	cop
12	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	14 bird	det
13	Never	never	ADV	PronType=Neg	14 bird	advmod
14	bird	bird	NOUN	Number=Sing	6 piece	parataxis
15	,	,	PUNCT	_	16 making	punct
16	making	make	VERB	Tense=Pres VerbForm=Part	14 bird	conj
17	desperate	desperate	ADJ	Degree=Pos	18 efforts	amod
18	efforts	effort	NOUN	Number=Plur	16 making	obj
19	to	to	PART	_	20 reach	mark
20	reach	reach	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	16 making	advcl
21	Peter	Peter	PROPN	Number=Sing	20 reach	obj
22	on	on	ADP	_	24 nest	case
23	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	24 nest	det
24	nest	nest	NOUN	Number=Sing	20 reach	obl
25	.	.	PUNCT	_	6 piece	punct

Pragmatics

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	where	other	roles by
1	not is a	past	thing	a piece		of paper	tree rules
2	not is a	past	thing	the bird			tree rules
3	make	gerund	thing not said here	desperate efforts			vn build-26.1-1 «NP.asset V NP»: agent=Asset effort=Product
4	reach	to-infinitive	thing not said here	Peter	the nest		vn body_motion-49.2-1-1 «NP V NP ADV»: agent=Agent peter=Theme

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/pg16/10/6/