Three hundred Aesop’s fables, Aesop’s Fables, part 7, sentence 15

He asked a man felling oaks in the forest if he had seen any marks of his footsteps or knew where his lair was.

Who acts: Lion, man, lair · What happens: ask, fell, see, know, be, mark · To what, where: man, oaks, forest, marks, footsteps · Speech: someone speaks here

This is a sentence of «Three hundred Aesop’s fables» by Aesop, Aesop’s Fables, part 7. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Lion, man, lair), 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	2 asked	nsubj
2	asked	ask	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	root	root
3	a	a	DET	Definite=Ind PronType=Art	4 man	det
4	man	man	NOUN	Number=Sing	2 asked	obj
5	felling	fell	VERB	VerbForm=Ger	4 man	acl
6	oaks	oak	NOUN	Number=Plur	5 felling	obj
7	in	in	ADP	_	9 forest	case
8	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	9 forest	det
9	forest	forest	NOUN	Number=Sing	5 felling	obl
10	if	if	SCONJ	_	13 seen	mark
11	he	he	PRON	Case=Nom Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	13 seen	nsubj
12	had	have	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	13 seen	aux
13	seen	see	VERB	Tense=Past VerbForm=Part	2 asked	advcl
14	any	any	DET	PronType=Ind	15 marks	det
15	marks	mark	NOUN	Number=Plur	13 seen	obj
16	of	of	ADP	_	18 footsteps	case
17	his	his	PRON	Case=Gen Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 Poss=Yes PronType=Prs	18 footsteps	nmod:poss
18	footsteps	footstep	NOUN	Number=Plur	15 marks	nmod
19	or	or	CCONJ	_	20 knew	cc
20	knew	know	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	13 seen	conj
21	where	where	ADV	PronType=Rel	20 knew	ccomp
22	his	his	PRON	Case=Gen Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 Poss=Yes PronType=Prs	23 lair	nmod:poss
23	lair	lair	NOUN	Number=Sing	21 where	nsubj
24	was	be	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	21 where	cop
25	.	.	PUNCT	_	2 asked	punct

Pragmatics

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	other	roles by
1	ask speech: ask	past	Lion		a man			vn inquire-37.1.2 «NP V NP.recipient»: agent=Agent man=Recipient
2	fell	gerund	a man not said here	oaks		the forest		tree rules
3	see a condition, not said to happen	past · perfect	Lion	any marks of Lion's footsteps				vn comprehend-87.2-1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Experiencer mark=Stimulus
4	know	past	Lion not said here					vn comprehend-87.2-1-1-1 «NP V»: agent=Experiencer
5	is	past	Lion's lair				where property	tree rules
6	mark			Lion's footsteps				nom mark «cognition 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.

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