The Aesop for Children, The Ass and His Driver, sentence 2

He could see his stall at the foot of the mountain, and to him the quickest way down seemed to be over the edge of the nearest cliff.

Who acts: He, quickest way · What happens: see, seem, be · To what, where: stall, foot, him, edge

This is a sentence of «The Aesop for Children» by Aesop, The Ass and His Driver. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (He, quickest way), 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	He	he	PRON	Case=Nom Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	3 see	nsubj
2	could	could	AUX	VerbForm=Fin	3 see	aux
3	see	see	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	root	root
4	his	his	PRON	Case=Gen Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 Poss=Yes PronType=Prs	5 stall	nmod:poss
5	stall	stall	NOUN	Number=Sing	3 see	obj
6	at	at	ADP	_	8 foot	case
7	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	8 foot	det
8	foot	foot	NOUN	Number=Sing	3 see	obl
9	of	of	ADP	_	11 mountain	case
10	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	11 mountain	det
11	mountain	mountain	NOUN	Number=Sing	8 foot	nmod
12	,	,	PUNCT	_	20 seemed	punct
13	and	and	CCONJ	_	20 seemed	cc
14	to	to	ADP	_	15 him	case
15	him	he	PRON	Case=Acc Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	20 seemed	obl
16	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	18 way	det
17	quickest	quick	ADJ	Degree=Sup	18 way	amod
18	way	way	NOUN	Number=Sing	20 seemed	nsubj
19	down	down	ADV	_	20 seemed	advmod
20	seemed	seem	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	3 see	parataxis
21	to	to	PART	_	25 edge	mark
22	be	be	AUX	VerbForm=Inf	25 edge	cop
23	over	over	ADP	_	25 edge	case
24	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	25 edge	det
25	edge	edge	NOUN	Number=Sing	20 seemed	xcomp
26	of	of	ADP	_	29 cliff	case
27	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	29 cliff	det
28	nearest	near	ADJ	Degree=Sup	29 cliff	amod
29	cliff	cliff	NOUN	Number=Sing	25 edge	nmod
30	.	.	PUNCT	_	3 see	punct

Pragmatics

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	other	roles by
1	see	could	He	his stall		the foot of the mountain		vn comprehend-87.2-1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Experiencer stall=Stimulus
2	seem	past	the quickest way		him = he		down property	vn seem-109-1-1-1 «NP V S_INF»: agent=Theme
3	is	to-infinitive	the quickest way not said here			the edge	of the nearest cliff	tree rules

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.

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