Fifty Famous Stories Retold, Cornelia's Jewels., sentence 16
They bowed before her, as Roman lads were taught to do, and said, "What is it, mother?"
Who acts: boys, Roman lads · What happens: bow, teach, do, say, be · To what, where: Roman lads, smile · Speech: someone speaks here
This is a sentence of «Fifty Famous Stories Retold» by James Baldwin, Cornelia's Jewels.. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (boys, Roman lads), 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 | They | they | PRON | Case=Nom Number=Plur Person=3 PronType=Prs | 2 bowed | nsubj |
| 2 | bowed | bow | VERB | Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | root | root |
| 3 | before | before | ADP | _ | 4 her | case |
| 4 | her | she | PRON | Case=Acc Gender=Fem Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs | 2 bowed | obl |
| 5 | , | , | PUNCT | _ | 10 taught | punct |
| 6 | as | as | SCONJ | _ | 10 taught | mark |
| 7 | Roman | roman | ADJ | Degree=Pos | 8 lads | amod |
| 8 | lads | lad | NOUN | Number=Plur | 10 taught | nsubj:pass |
| 9 | were | be | AUX | Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | 10 taught | aux:pass |
| 10 | taught | teach | VERB | Tense=Past VerbForm=Part Voice=Pass | 2 bowed | conj |
| 11 | to | to | PART | _ | 12 do | mark |
| 12 | do | do | VERB | VerbForm=Inf | 10 taught | xcomp |
| 13 | , | , | PUNCT | _ | 15 said | punct |
| 14 | and | and | CCONJ | _ | 15 said | cc |
| 15 | said | say | VERB | Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | 2 bowed | parataxis |
| 16 | , | , | PUNCT | _ | 18 What | punct |
| 17 | " | " | PUNCT | _ | 18 What | punct |
| 18 | What | what | PRON | PronType=Int | 15 said | obj |
| 19 | is | be | AUX | Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin | 20 it | cop |
| 20 | it | it | PRON | Case=Nom Gender=Neut Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs | 18 What | nsubj |
| 21 | , | , | PUNCT | _ | 22 mother | punct |
| 22 | mother | mother | NOUN | Number=Sing | 18 What | acl:relcl |
| 23 | ? | ? | PUNCT | _ | 15 said | punct |
| 24 | " | " | PUNCT | _ | 2 bowed | punct |
Pragmatics
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | bow | past | boys = boy | before walk | vn assuming_position-50 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Agent before she=Location | ||||
| 2 | teach speech: other | past · passive | Roman lads | vn transfer_mesg-37.1.1-1-1 «NP V NP S_INF»: subject=Recipient clause=Topic | |||||
| 3 | do | to-infinitive | Roman lads not said here | vn act-114-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent | |||||
| 4 | say speech: ask | past | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V NP.topic»: agent=Agent what=Topic | ||||||
| 5 | is a in a quote | present | smile | tree rules |
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: «Fifty Famous Stories Retold» by James Baldwin, Project Gutenberg book 18442 (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/pg18442/29/16/