Three hundred Aesop’s fables, Aesop’s Fables, part 2, sentence 60

For a long time the Farmer, brandishing an empty sling, chased them away by the terror he inspired; but when the birds found that the sling was only swung in the air, they ceased to take any notice of it and would not move.

Who acts: Farmer, oxen, birds · What happens: brandish, chase away, inspire, find, swing, cease · To what, where: empty sling, Farmer, terror, sling, air, notice · Speech: someone speaks here

This is a sentence of «Three hundred Aesop’s fables» by Aesop, Aesop’s Fables, part 2. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Farmer, oxen, birds), 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	For	for	ADP	_	4 time	case
2	a	a	DET	Definite=Ind PronType=Art	4 time	det
3	long	long	ADJ	Degree=Pos	4 time	amod
4	time	time	NOUN	Number=Sing	13 chased	obl
5	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	6 Farmer	det
6	Farmer	Farmer	PROPN	Number=Sing	4 time	appos
7	,	,	PUNCT	_	8 brandishing	punct
8	brandishing	brandish	VERB	VerbForm=Ger	6 Farmer	acl
9	an	a	DET	Definite=Ind PronType=Art	11 sling	det
10	empty	empty	ADJ	Degree=Pos	11 sling	amod
11	sling	sling	NOUN	Number=Sing	8 brandishing	obj
12	,	,	PUNCT	_	4 time	punct
13	chased	chase	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=1 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	root	root
14	them	they	PRON	Case=Acc Number=Plur Person=3 PronType=Prs	13 chased	obj
15	away	away	ADV	_	13 chased	advmod
16	by	by	ADP	_	18 terror	case
17	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	18 terror	det
18	terror	terror	NOUN	Number=Sing	13 chased	obl
19	he	he	PRON	Case=Nom Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	20 inspired	nsubj
20	inspired	inspire	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	18 terror	acl:relcl
21	;	;	PUNCT	_	38 ceased	punct
22	but	but	CCONJ	_	38 ceased	cc
23	when	when	ADV	PronType=Int	26 found	advmod
24	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	25 birds	det
25	birds	bird	NOUN	Number=Plur	26 found	nsubj
26	found	find	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	38 ceased	advcl
27	that	that	SCONJ	_	32 swung	mark
28	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	29 sling	det
29	sling	sling	NOUN	Number=Sing	32 swung	nsubj
30	was	be	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	32 swung	aux:pass
31	only	only	ADV	_	32 swung	advmod
32	swung	swing	VERB	Tense=Past VerbForm=Part Voice=Pass	26 found	ccomp
33	in	in	ADP	_	35 air	case
34	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	35 air	det
35	air	air	NOUN	Number=Sing	32 swung	obl
36	,	,	PUNCT	_	26 found	punct
37	they	they	PRON	Case=Nom Number=Plur Person=3 PronType=Prs	38 ceased	nsubj
38	ceased	cease	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	13 chased	conj
39	to	to	PART	_	40 take	mark
40	take	take	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	38 ceased	xcomp
41	any	any	DET	PronType=Ind	42 notice	det
42	notice	notice	NOUN	Number=Sing	40 take	obj
43	of	of	ADP	_	44 it	case
44	it	it	PRON	Case=Acc Gender=Neut Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	42 notice	nmod
45	and	and	CCONJ	_	48 move	cc
46	would	would	AUX	VerbForm=Fin	48 move	aux
47	not	not	PART	Polarity=Neg	48 move	advmod
48	move	move	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	40 take	conj
49	.	.	PUNCT	_	13 chased	punct

Pragmatics

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	brandish	gerund	the Farmer not said here	a empty sling				tree rules
2	chase away	past		Farmer		time	by the terror; away property	vn chase-51.6 «NP V NP PP.location»: agent=Agent they=Theme by terror=Trajectory
3	inspire	past	oxen	the terror not said here				vn amuse-31.1 «NP V NP»: agent=Stimulus terror=Experiencer
4	find	past	the birds					vn declare-29.4-1-1 «NP V what S_INF»: agent=Agent clause=Theme
5	swing	past · passive		the sling	the air			vn spatial_configuration-47.6-1 «NP V NP.theme PP»: subject=Theme in air=Location
6	cease	past	Farmer					vn stop-55.4-1-1 «NP V S_ING»: agent=Affector clause=Eventuality
7	take	to-infinitive	Farmer not said here	any notice of sling				vn bring-11.3 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent notice=Theme
8	not move	would	Farmer not said here					vn roll-51.3.1 «NP.theme V»: agent=Theme
9	notice			sling				nom notice «communication transitive»: of=patient

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: «Three hundred Aesop’s fables» by Aesop, Project Gutenberg book 21 (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/pg21/4/60/