Uncle Remus, His Songs and His Sayings, XXVIII. the End of Mr. Bear, sentence 15

Uncle Remus was finishing an axe-handle, and upon these occasions it was his custom to allow the child to hold one end while he applied sand-paper to the other.

Who acts: Uncle, handle, child · What happens: finish, be, allow, hold, apply · To what, where: axe handle, custom, child, one end, sand paper

This is a sentence of «Uncle Remus, His Songs and His Sayings» by Joel Chandler Harris, XXVIII. the End of Mr. Bear. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Uncle, handle, child), 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	Uncle	uncle	NOUN	Number=Sing	4 finishing	nsubj
2	Remus	Remus	PROPN	Number=Sing	1 Uncle	flat
3	was	be	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	4 finishing	aux
4	finishing	finish	VERB	Tense=Pres VerbForm=Part	root	root
5	an	a	DET	Definite=Ind PronType=Art	8 handle	det
6	axe	axe	NOUN	Number=Sing	8 handle	compound
7	-	-	PUNCT	_	6 axe	punct
8	handle	handle	NOUN	Number=Sing	4 finishing	obj
9	,	,	PUNCT	_	17 custom	punct
10	and	and	CCONJ	_	17 custom	cc
11	upon	upon	ADP	_	13 occasions	case
12	these	this	DET	Number=Plur PronType=Dem	13 occasions	det
13	occasions	occasion	NOUN	Number=Plur	17 custom	obl
14	it	it	PRON	Case=Nom Gender=Neut Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	17 custom	nsubj
15	was	be	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	17 custom	cop
16	his	his	PRON	Case=Gen Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 Poss=Yes PronType=Prs	17 custom	nmod:poss
17	custom	custom	NOUN	Number=Sing	4 finishing	obl
18	to	to	PART	_	19 allow	mark
19	allow	allow	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	17 custom	acl
20	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	21 child	det
21	child	child	NOUN	Number=Sing	19 allow	obj
22	to	to	PART	_	23 hold	mark
23	hold	hold	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	19 allow	xcomp
24	one	one	NUM	NumForm=Word NumType=Card	25 end	nummod
25	end	end	NOUN	Number=Sing	23 hold	obj
26	while	while	SCONJ	_	28 applied	mark
27	he	he	PRON	Case=Nom Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	28 applied	nsubj
28	applied	apply	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	23 hold	advcl
29	sand	sand	NOUN	Number=Sing	31 paper	compound
30	-	-	PUNCT	_	29 sand	punct
31	paper	paper	NOUN	Number=Sing	28 applied	obj
32	to	to	ADP	_	34 other	case
33	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	34 other	det
34	other	other	ADJ	Degree=Pos	28 applied	obl
35	.	.	PUNCT	_	4 finishing	punct

Pragmatics

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	other	roles by
1	finish	past · progressive	Uncle	a axe handle		vn stop-55.4-1-1 «NP V NP.eventuality»: agent=Affector handle=Eventuality
2	is a	past	handle	Uncle's custom	upon this occasions	tree rules
3	allow	to-infinitive	Uncle not said here	the child		vn allow-64.1-1 «NP V NP S»: agent=Causer child=Beneficiary clause=Eventuality
4	hold not said to happen	to-infinitive	the child not said here	one end		vn keep-15.2 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent end=Theme
5	apply	past	Uncle	sand paper	to the other	vn use-105.1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent paper=Theme

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: «Uncle Remus, His Songs and His Sayings» by Joel Chandler Harris, Project Gutenberg book 2306 (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/pg2306/31/15/