Fifty Famous Stories Retold, Antonio Canova., sentence 8

Sometimes he would make a little statue of soft clay; sometimes he would take hammer and chisel, and try to cut a statue from a piece of rock.

Who acts: lad · What happens: make, take, try, cut · To what, where: little statue, hammer, statue, piece

This is a sentence of «Fifty Famous Stories Retold» by James Baldwin, Antonio Canova.. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (lad), 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	Sometimes	sometimes	ADV	PronType=Ind	4 make	advmod
2	he	he	PRON	Case=Nom Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	4 make	nsubj
3	would	would	AUX	VerbForm=Fin	4 make	aux
4	make	make	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	root	root
5	a	a	DET	Definite=Ind PronType=Art	7 statue	det
6	little	little	ADJ	Degree=Pos	7 statue	amod
7	statue	statue	NOUN	Number=Sing	4 make	obj
8	of	of	ADP	_	10 clay	case
9	soft	soft	ADJ	Degree=Pos	10 clay	amod
10	clay	clay	NOUN	Number=Sing	7 statue	nmod
11	;	;	PUNCT	_	15 take	punct
12	sometimes	sometimes	ADV	PronType=Ind	15 take	advmod
13	he	he	PRON	Case=Nom Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	15 take	nsubj
14	would	would	AUX	VerbForm=Fin	15 take	aux
15	take	take	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	4 make	parataxis
16	hammer	hammer	NOUN	Number=Sing	15 take	obj
17	and	and	CCONJ	_	18 chisel	cc
18	chisel	chisel	NOUN	Number=Sing	16 hammer	conj
19	,	,	PUNCT	_	21 try	punct
20	and	and	CCONJ	_	21 try	cc
21	try	try	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	15 take	conj
22	to	to	PART	_	23 cut	mark
23	cut	cut	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	21 try	xcomp
24	a	a	DET	Definite=Ind PronType=Art	25 statue	det
25	statue	statue	NOUN	Number=Sing	23 cut	obj
26	from	from	ADP	_	28 piece	case
27	a	a	DET	Definite=Ind PronType=Art	28 piece	det
28	piece	piece	NOUN	Number=Sing	23 cut	obl
29	of	of	ADP	_	30 rock	case
30	rock	rock	NOUN	Number=Sing	28 piece	nmod
31	.	.	PUNCT	_	4 make	punct

Pragmatics

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	where	other	roles by
1	make	would	lad	a little statue of soft clay		sometimes property	vn build-26.1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent statue=Product
2	take	would	lad	hammer and chisel		sometimes property	vn bring-11.3 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent hammer=Theme
3	try	infinitive	lad not said here				vn try-61.1 «NP V S_INF»: agent=Agent clause=Eventuality
4	cut not said to happen	to-infinitive	lad not said here	a statue	a piece of rock		vn build-26.1-1 «NP.asset V PP»: agent=Asset statue=Product from piece=Material

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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