The Aesop for Children, The Hares and the Frogs, sentence 4

But while they were debating how best to meet death, they thought they heard a noise and in a flash were scampering off to the warren.

Who acts: Hares · What happens: debate, meet, think, hear, scamper off · To what, where: best, death, noise, flash · Speech: someone speaks here

This is a sentence of «The Aesop for Children» by Aesop, The Hares and the Frogs. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Hares), 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	_	13 thought	cc
2	while	while	SCONJ	_	5 debating	mark
3	they	they	PRON	Case=Nom Number=Plur Person=3 PronType=Prs	5 debating	nsubj
4	were	be	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	5 debating	aux
5	debating	debate	VERB	Tense=Pres VerbForm=Part	13 thought	advcl
6	how	how	ADV	PronType=Int	7 best	advmod
7	best	good	ADJ	Degree=Sup	5 debating	obj
8	to	to	PART	_	9 meet	mark
9	meet	meet	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	5 debating	advcl
10	death	death	NOUN	Number=Sing	9 meet	obj
11	,	,	PUNCT	_	5 debating	punct
12	they	they	PRON	Case=Nom Number=Plur Person=3 PronType=Prs	13 thought	nsubj
13	thought	think	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	root	root
14	they	they	PRON	Case=Nom Number=Plur Person=3 PronType=Prs	15 heard	nsubj
15	heard	hear	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	13 thought	ccomp
16	a	a	DET	Definite=Ind PronType=Art	17 noise	det
17	noise	noise	NOUN	Number=Sing	15 heard	obj
18	and	and	CCONJ	_	23 scampering	cc
19	in	in	ADP	_	21 flash	case
20	a	a	DET	Definite=Ind PronType=Art	21 flash	det
21	flash	flash	NOUN	Number=Sing	23 scampering	obl
22	were	be	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	23 scampering	aux
23	scampering	scamper	VERB	Tense=Pres VerbForm=Part	15 heard	conj
24	off	off	ADP	_	23 scampering	compound:prt
25	to	to	ADP	_	27 warren	case
26	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	27 warren	det
27	warren	warren	NOUN	Number=Sing	23 scampering	obl
28	.	.	PUNCT	_	13 thought	punct

Pragmatics

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	where	other	roles by
1	debate	past · progressive	Hares = hare	best			vn battle-36.4-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent good=Co-Agent
2	meet	to-infinitive	Hares = hare not said here	death			vn meet-36.3-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent death=Co-Agent
3	think speech: other	past	Hares = hare				vn consider-29.9-2 «NP V how S»: agent=Agent clause=Theme
4	hear	past	Hares = hare	a noise			vn see-30.1-1-1 «NP V S»: agent=Experiencer noise=Stimulus
5	scamper off	past · progressive	Hares = hare not said here		a flash	to the warren	vn run-51.3.2 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Theme to warren=Destination

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/pg19994/49/4/