Fifty Famous Stories Retold, The Blind Men and the Elephant., sentence 5
Of course they could not see him with their eyes; but they thought that by touching him they could learn just what kind of animal he was.
Who acts: phants · What happens: not see, think, touch, learn · To what, where: driver, kind
This is a sentence of «Fifty Famous Stories Retold» by James Baldwin, The Blind Men and the Elephant.. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (phants), 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 | Of | of | ADP | ExtPos=ADV | 6 see | advmod |
| 2 | course | course | NOUN | Number=Sing | 1 Of | fixed |
| 3 | they | they | PRON | Case=Nom Number=Plur Person=3 PronType=Prs | 6 see | nsubj |
| 4 | could | could | AUX | VerbForm=Fin | 6 see | aux |
| 5 | not | not | PART | Polarity=Neg | 6 see | advmod |
| 6 | see | see | VERB | VerbForm=Inf | root | root |
| 7 | him | he | PRON | Case=Acc Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs | 6 see | obj |
| 8 | with | with | ADP | _ | 10 eyes | case |
| 9 | their | their | PRON | Case=Gen Number=Plur Person=3 Poss=Yes PronType=Prs | 10 eyes | nmod:poss |
| 10 | eyes | eye | NOUN | Number=Plur | 6 see | obl |
| 11 | ; | ; | PUNCT | _ | 14 thought | punct |
| 12 | but | but | CCONJ | _ | 14 thought | cc |
| 13 | they | they | PRON | Case=Nom Number=Plur Person=3 PronType=Prs | 14 thought | nsubj |
| 14 | thought | think | VERB | Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | 6 see | advcl |
| 15 | that | that | SCONJ | _ | 17 touching | mark |
| 16 | by | by | SCONJ | _ | 17 touching | mark |
| 17 | touching | touch | VERB | Tense=Pres VerbForm=Part | 14 thought | advcl |
| 18 | him | he | PRON | Case=Acc Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs | 17 touching | obj |
| 19 | they | they | PRON | Case=Nom Number=Plur Person=3 PronType=Prs | 21 learn | nsubj |
| 20 | could | could | AUX | VerbForm=Fin | 21 learn | aux |
| 21 | learn | learn | VERB | VerbForm=Inf | 17 touching | parataxis |
| 22 | just | just | ADV | _ | 24 kind | advmod |
| 23 | what | what | DET | PronType=Int | 24 kind | det |
| 24 | kind | kind | NOUN | Number=Sing | 21 learn | obj |
| 25 | of | of | ADP | _ | 26 animal | case |
| 26 | animal | animal | NOUN | Number=Sing | 24 kind | nmod |
| 27 | he | he | PRON | Case=Nom Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs | 28 was | nsubj |
| 28 | was | be | AUX | Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | 24 kind | acl:relcl |
| 29 | . | . | PUNCT | _ | 6 see | punct |
Pragmatics
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | not see | could | phants = phant | driver | with phants's eyes | vn comprehend-87.2-1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Experiencer he=Stimulus | |||
| 2 | think speech: other | past | phants = phant | vn focus-87.1-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent | |||||
| 3 | touch | gerund | phants = phant not said here | driver | vn contiguous_location-47.8-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Theme he=Co-Theme | ||||
| 4 | learn | could | phants = phant | what kind of animal | vn learn-14-2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent kind=Topic |
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/pg18442/46/5/