Fifty Famous Stories Retold, IV. the Cat., sentence 7

They had hardly begun to eat when an army of rats and mice rushed in, and de-voured all the meat before any one could hinder them.

Who acts: dishes, one · What happens: begin, eat, rush in, vour, hinder · To what, where: voured meat, rats, army, dishes

This is a sentence of «Fifty Famous Stories Retold» by James Baldwin, IV. the Cat.. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (dishes, one), 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	4 begun	nsubj
2	had	have	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	4 begun	aux
3	hardly	hardly	ADV	_	4 begun	advmod
4	begun	begin	VERB	Tense=Past VerbForm=Part	root	root
5	to	to	PART	_	6 eat	mark
6	eat	eat	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	4 begun	xcomp
7	when	when	ADV	PronType=Int	20 voured	advmod
8	an	a	DET	Definite=Ind PronType=Art	9 army	det
9	army	army	NOUN	Number=Sing	20 voured	nsubj:pass
10	of	of	ADP	_	11 rats	case
11	rats	rat	NOUN	Number=Plur	9 army	nmod
12	and	and	CCONJ	_	13 mice	cc
13	mice	mouse	NOUN	Number=Plur	11 rats	conj
14	rushed	rush	VERB	Tense=Past VerbForm=Part Voice=Pass	11 rats	acl
15	in	in	ADV	_	14 rushed	advmod
16	,	,	PUNCT	_	20 voured	punct
17	and	and	CCONJ	_	20 voured	cc
18	de	de	NOUN	Number=Sing	20 voured	compound
19	-	-	PUNCT	_	18 de	punct
20	voured	vour	VERB	Tense=Past VerbForm=Part Voice=Pass	23 meat	amod
21	all	all	DET	PronType=Tot	23 meat	det:predet
22	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	23 meat	det
23	meat	meat	NOUN	Number=Sing	6 eat	obj
24	before	before	SCONJ	_	28 hinder	mark
25	any	any	DET	PronType=Ind	26 one	det
26	one	one	NOUN	Number=Sing	28 hinder	nsubj
27	could	could	AUX	VerbForm=Fin	28 hinder	aux
28	hinder	hinder	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	6 eat	advcl
29	them	they	PRON	Case=Acc Number=Plur Person=3 PronType=Prs	28 hinder	obj
30	.	.	PUNCT	_	4 begun	punct

Pragmatics

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	other	roles by
1	begin	past · perfect	dishes = dish		hardly property	vn begin-55.1-1-1 «NP V S_INF»: agent=Agent clause=Eventuality
2	eat	to-infinitive	dishes = dish not said here	all voured meat		vn eat-39.1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent meat=Patient
3	rush in	participle		rats and mice not said here		vn run-51.3.2-2-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme
4	vour	participle · passive		a army of rats and mice		tree rules
5	hinder	could	any one	dishes = dish		vn discourage-64.5-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Causer they=Eventuality

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.

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