The Aesop for Children, The Tortoise and the Ducks, sentence 17

But as he opened his mouth to say these foolish words he lost his hold on the stick, and down he fell to the ground, where he was dashed to pieces on a rock.

Who acts: Tortoise · What happens: open, say, lose, fall, dash, hold · To what, where: mouth, foolish words, hold, stick, Tortoise · Speech: someone speaks here

This is a sentence of «The Aesop for Children» by Aesop, The Tortoise and the Ducks. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Tortoise), 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	But	but	CCONJ	_	4 opened	cc
2	as	as	SCONJ	_	4 opened	mark
3	he	he	PRON	Case=Nom Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	4 opened	nsubj
4	opened	open	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	root	root
5	his	his	PRON	Case=Gen Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 Poss=Yes PronType=Prs	6 mouth	nmod:poss
6	mouth	mouth	NOUN	Number=Sing	4 opened	obj
7	to	to	PART	_	8 say	mark
8	say	say	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	4 opened	advcl
9	these	this	DET	Number=Plur PronType=Dem	11 words	det
10	foolish	foolish	ADJ	Degree=Pos	11 words	amod
11	words	word	NOUN	Number=Plur	8 say	obj
12	he	he	PRON	Case=Nom Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	13 lost	nsubj
13	lost	lose	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	11 words	acl:relcl
14	his	his	PRON	Case=Gen Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 Poss=Yes PronType=Prs	15 hold	nmod:poss
15	hold	hold	NOUN	Number=Sing	13 lost	obj
16	on	on	ADP	_	18 stick	case
17	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	18 stick	det
18	stick	stick	NOUN	Number=Sing	13 lost	obl
19	,	,	PUNCT	_	23 fell	punct
20	and	and	CCONJ	_	23 fell	cc
21	down	down	ADV	_	23 fell	advmod
22	he	he	PRON	Case=Nom Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	23 fell	nsubj
23	fell	fall	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	4 opened	conj
24	to	to	ADP	_	26 ground	case
25	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	26 ground	det
26	ground	ground	NOUN	Number=Sing	23 fell	obl
27	,	,	PUNCT	_	31 dashed	punct
28	where	where	ADV	PronType=Rel	31 dashed	advmod
29	he	he	PRON	Case=Nom Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	31 dashed	nsubj
30	was	be	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	31 dashed	aux:pass
31	dashed	dash	VERB	Tense=Past VerbForm=Part Voice=Pass	23 fell	conj
32	to	to	ADP	_	33 pieces	case
33	pieces	piece	NOUN	Number=Plur	31 dashed	obl
34	on	on	ADP	_	36 rock	case
35	a	a	DET	Definite=Ind PronType=Art	36 rock	det
36	rock	rock	NOUN	Number=Sing	33 pieces	nmod
37	.	.	PUNCT	_	4 opened	punct

Pragmatics

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	where	other	roles by
1	open	past	Tortoise	Tortoise's mouth			vn spatial_configuration-47.6-1 «PP.location V NP»: agent=Location mouth=Theme
2	say speech: assert	to-infinitive	Tortoise not said here	this foolish words			vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V NP.topic»: agent=Agent word=Topic
3	lose	past	Tortoise	Tortoise's hold	the stick		vn succeed-74-3-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent hold=Eventuality
4	fall	past	Tortoise			to the ground; down property	vn acquiesce-95.1-1 «NP V PP.theme»: agent=Agent to ground=Theme
5	dash	past · passive		Tortoise		to pieces on a rock result	vn hit-18.1 «NP V NP PP.result»: subject=Patient to piece=Result
6	hold		Tortoise				nom hold «act transitive»: poss=agent

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/pg19994/4/17/