The Aesop for Children, The Cat and the Old Rat, sentence 1
There was once a Cat who was so watchful, that a Mouse hardly dared show the tip of his whiskers for fear of being eaten alive.
Who acts: Cat, Mouse · What happens: be, dare, show, eat · To what, where: tip, fear
This is a sentence of «The Aesop for Children» by Aesop, The Cat and the Old Rat. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Cat, Mouse), 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 | There | there | PRON | PronType=Dem | 2 was | expl |
| 2 | was | be | VERB | Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | root | root |
| 3 | once | once | ADV | NumForm=Word NumType=Mult | 2 was | advmod |
| 4 | a | a | DET | Definite=Ind PronType=Art | 5 Cat | det |
| 5 | Cat | cat | NOUN | Number=Sing | 2 was | nsubj |
| 6 | who | who | PRON | PronType=Rel | 9 watchful | nsubj |
| 7 | was | be | AUX | Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | 9 watchful | cop |
| 8 | so | so | ADV | _ | 9 watchful | advmod |
| 9 | watchful | watchful | ADJ | Degree=Pos | 5 Cat | acl:relcl |
| 10 | , | , | PUNCT | _ | 15 dared | punct |
| 11 | that | that | SCONJ | _ | 15 dared | mark |
| 12 | a | a | DET | Definite=Ind PronType=Art | 13 Mouse | det |
| 13 | Mouse | mouse | NOUN | Number=Sing | 15 dared | nsubj |
| 14 | hardly | hardly | ADV | _ | 15 dared | advmod |
| 15 | dared | dare | VERB | Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | 2 was | conj |
| 16 | show | show | VERB | VerbForm=Inf | 15 dared | xcomp |
| 17 | the | the | DET | Definite=Def PronType=Art | 18 tip | det |
| 18 | tip | tip | NOUN | Number=Sing | 16 show | obj |
| 19 | of | of | ADP | _ | 21 whiskers | case |
| 20 | his | his | PRON | Case=Gen Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 Poss=Yes PronType=Prs | 21 whiskers | nmod:poss |
| 21 | whiskers | whisker | NOUN | Number=Plur | 18 tip | nmod |
| 22 | for | for | ADP | _ | 23 fear | case |
| 23 | fear | fear | NOUN | Number=Sing | 21 whiskers | nmod |
| 24 | of | of | SCONJ | _ | 26 eaten | mark |
| 25 | being | be | AUX | Tense=Pres VerbForm=Part | 26 eaten | aux:pass |
| 26 | eaten | eat | VERB | Tense=Past VerbForm=Part Voice=Pass | 23 fear | acl |
| 27 | alive | alive | ADJ | Degree=Pos | 26 eaten | xcomp |
| 28 | . | . | PUNCT | _ | 2 was | punct |
Pragmatics
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | be | past | a Cat | there | once property | vn exist-47.1 «NP V»: agent=Theme | |||
| 2 | is | past | a Cat | watchful property | tree rules | ||||
| 3 | dare | past | a Mouse | hardly property | vn urge-58.1-1 «NP V NP S_ING»: agent=Agent clause=Topic | ||||
| 4 | show | infinitive | a Mouse not said here | the tip of Mouse's whiskers for fear | vn transfer_mesg-37.1.1-1-1 «NP V NP.recipient»: agent=Agent tip=Recipient | ||||
| 5 | eat | gerund · passive | fear not said here | alive property | vn eat-39.1-1 «NP V» |
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: «The Aesop for Children» by Aesop, Project Gutenberg book 19994 (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/pg19994/131/1/