Russian Fairy Tales: A Choice Collection of Muscovite Folk-lore, Chapter II. MYTHOLOGICAL, part 3, sentence 72

The prince's elder brothers almost always attempt to kill him, when he is about to ascend from the gulf or descend from the steeps which separate him from them.

Who acts: elder brothers, Prince, steeps · What happens: attempt, kill, be, ascend, descend, separate · To what, where: Prince, gulf, steeps

This is a sentence of «Russian Fairy Tales: A Choice Collection of Muscovite Folk-lore», Chapter II. MYTHOLOGICAL, part 3. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (elder brothers, Prince, steeps), 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	The	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	2 prince	det
2	prince	prince	NOUN	Number=Sing	5 brothers	nmod:poss
3	's	's	PART	_	2 prince	case
4	elder	elder	NOUN	Number=Sing	5 brothers	compound
5	brothers	brother	NOUN	Number=Plur	8 attempt	nsubj
6	almost	almost	ADV	_	7 always	advmod
7	always	always	ADV	PronType=Tot	8 attempt	advmod
8	attempt	attempt	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	root	root
9	to	to	PART	_	10 kill	mark
10	kill	kill	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	8 attempt	xcomp
11	him	he	PRON	Case=Acc Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	10 kill	obj
12	,	,	PUNCT	_	16 about	punct
13	when	when	ADV	PronType=Int	16 about	advmod
14	he	he	PRON	Case=Nom Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	16 about	nsubj
15	is	be	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	16 about	cop
16	about	about	ADJ	Degree=Pos	8 attempt	conj
17	to	to	PART	_	18 ascend	mark
18	ascend	ascend	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	16 about	xcomp
19	from	from	ADP	_	21 gulf	case
20	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	21 gulf	det
21	gulf	gulf	NOUN	Number=Sing	18 ascend	obl
22	or	or	CCONJ	_	23 descend	cc
23	descend	descend	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	18 ascend	conj
24	from	from	ADP	_	26 steeps	case
25	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	26 steeps	det
26	steeps	steep	NOUN	Number=Plur	23 descend	obl
27	which	which	PRON	PronType=Rel	28 separate	nsubj
28	separate	separate	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	26 steeps	acl:relcl
29	him	he	PRON	Case=Acc Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	28 separate	obj
30	from	from	ADP	_	31 them	case
31	them	they	PRON	Case=Acc Number=Plur Person=3 PronType=Prs	28 separate	obl
32	.	.	PUNCT	_	8 attempt	punct

Pragmatics

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	where	other	roles by
1	attempt	present	the prince's elder brothers			always property	vn try-61.1 «NP V S_INF»: agent=Agent clause=Eventuality
2	kill not said to happen	to-infinitive	the prince's elder brothers not said here	Prince			vn remove-10.1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent he=Theme
3	is	present	Prince			about property	tree rules
4	ascend	to-infinitive	Prince not said here		the gulf		vn escape-51.1-1-3 «NP V PP.initial_location»: agent=Theme from gulf=Initial_Location
5	descend	infinitive	Prince not said here		the steeps		vn meander-47.7-1 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Theme from steep=Location
6	separate	present	the steeps	Prince		from brothers = brother	vn separate-23.1-1-1 «NP V NP PP.co-patient»: agent=Agent he=Patient from they=Co-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: «Russian Fairy Tales: A Choice Collection of Muscovite Folk-lore», Project Gutenberg book 22373 (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/pg22373/21/72/