Fifty Famous Stories Retold, I. the City., sentence 12

The driver asked him some questions; and when he learned how poor Dick was, and that he had neither father nor mother, he told him that he might do as he liked.

Who acts: driver · What happens: ask, be, have, tell, do, like · To what, where: questions, lad, father · Speech: someone speaks here

This is a sentence of «Fifty Famous Stories Retold» by James Baldwin, I. the City.. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (driver), 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	2 driver	det
2	driver	driver	NOUN	Number=Sing	3 asked	nsubj
3	asked	ask	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	root	root
4	him	he	PRON	Case=Acc Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	3 asked	iobj
5	some	some	DET	PronType=Ind	6 questions	det
6	questions	question	NOUN	Number=Plur	3 asked	obj
7	;	;	PUNCT	_	11 learned	punct
8	and	and	CCONJ	_	11 learned	cc
9	when	when	ADV	PronType=Int	11 learned	advmod
10	he	he	PRON	Case=Nom Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	11 learned	nsubj
11	learned	learn	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	3 asked	conj
12	how	how	ADV	PronType=Int	13 poor	advmod
13	poor	poor	ADJ	Degree=Pos	14 Dick	amod
14	Dick	Dick	PROPN	Number=Sing	11 learned	obj
15	was	be	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	11 learned	cop
16	,	,	PUNCT	_	20 had	punct
17	and	and	CCONJ	_	20 had	cc
18	that	that	SCONJ	_	20 had	mark
19	he	he	PRON	Case=Nom Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	20 had	nsubj
20	had	have	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	3 asked	parataxis
21	neither	neither	CCONJ	Polarity=Neg	22 father	cc:preconj
22	father	father	NOUN	Number=Sing	20 had	obj
23	nor	nor	CCONJ	Polarity=Neg	24 mother	cc
24	mother	mother	NOUN	Number=Sing	22 father	conj
25	,	,	PUNCT	_	27 told	punct
26	he	he	PRON	Case=Nom Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	27 told	nsubj
27	told	tell	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	3 asked	parataxis
28	him	he	PRON	Case=Acc Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	27 told	iobj
29	that	that	SCONJ	_	32 do	mark
30	he	he	PRON	Case=Nom Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	32 do	nsubj
31	might	might	AUX	VerbForm=Fin	32 do	aux
32	do	do	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	27 told	xcomp
33	as	as	SCONJ	_	35 liked	mark
34	he	he	PRON	Case=Nom Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	35 liked	nsubj
35	liked	like	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	32 do	advcl
36	.	.	PUNCT	_	3 asked	punct

Pragmatics

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	other	roles by
1	ask speech: ask	past	the driver	some questions	lad		tree rules
2	is	past	driver			learn property	tree rules
3	have	past	driver	father nor mother			vn birth-28.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent father=Patient
4	tell speech: assert	past	driver		lad		vn transfer_mesg-37.1.1-1-1 «NP V NP S_INF»: agent=Agent he=Recipient clause=Topic
5	do not said to happen	might	driver				vn act-114-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent
6	like	past	driver				vn want-32.1-1-1 «NP V NP S_INF»: agent=Pivot

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/pg18442/49/12/