Russian Fairy Tales: A Choice Collection of Muscovite Folk-lore, Ghost Stories., part 4, sentence 116

The only certain methods of destroying a vampire appear to be either to consume him by fire, or to chop off his head with a grave-digger's shovel.

Who acts: only certain methods · What happens: destroy, appear, be, chop off · To what, where: vampire, head

This is a sentence of «Russian Fairy Tales: A Choice Collection of Muscovite Folk-lore», Ghost Stories., part 4. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (only certain methods), 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	4 methods	det
2	only	only	ADJ	Degree=Pos	4 methods	amod
3	certain	certain	ADJ	Degree=Pos	4 methods	amod
4	methods	method	NOUN	Number=Plur	9 appear	nsubj
5	of	of	SCONJ	_	6 destroying	mark
6	destroying	destroy	VERB	VerbForm=Ger	4 methods	acl
7	a	a	DET	Definite=Ind PronType=Art	8 vampire	det
8	vampire	vampire	NOUN	Number=Sing	6 destroying	obj
9	appear	appear	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	root	root
10	to	to	PART	_	14 consume	mark
11	be	be	AUX	VerbForm=Inf	14 consume	cop
12	either	either	CCONJ	_	14 consume	cc:preconj
13	to	to	PART	_	14 consume	mark
14	consume	consume	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	9 appear	ccomp
15	him	he	PRON	Case=Acc Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	14 consume	obj
16	by	by	ADP	_	17 fire	case
17	fire	fire	NOUN	Number=Sing	14 consume	obl
18	,	,	PUNCT	_	21 chop	punct
19	or	or	CCONJ	_	21 chop	cc
20	to	to	PART	_	21 chop	mark
21	chop	chop	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	9 appear	conj
22	off	off	ADP	_	21 chop	compound:prt
23	his	his	PRON	Case=Gen Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 Poss=Yes PronType=Prs	24 head	nmod:poss
24	head	head	NOUN	Number=Sing	21 chop	obj
25	with	with	ADP	_	31 shovel	case
26	a	a	DET	Definite=Ind PronType=Art	29 digger	det
27	grave	grave	NOUN	Number=Sing	29 digger	compound
28	-	-	PUNCT	_	27 grave	punct
29	digger	digger	NOUN	Number=Sing	31 shovel	nmod:poss
30	's	's	PART	_	29 digger	case
31	shovel	shovel	NOUN	Number=Sing	21 chop	obl
32	.	.	PUNCT	_	9 appear	punct

Pragmatics

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	other	roles by
1	destroy	gerund	the only certain methods not said here	a vampire		vn destroy-44 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent vampire=Patient
2	appear	present	the only certain methods			vn seem-109-1-1-1 «NP V S_INF»: agent=Theme clause=Attribute
3	is	to-infinitive	the only certain methods not said here		by fire; consume property	tree rules
4	chop off	to-infinitive	the only certain methods not said here	Mannhardt's head	with a grave digger's shovel	vn carve-21.2-2 «NP V NP PP.instrument»: agent=Agent head=Patient with shovel=Instrument

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/pg22373/54/116/