Uncle Remus, His Songs and His Sayings, XVI. Uncle Remus Preaches to a Convert, sentence 6
"Yes," responded Charley, straightening himself up and speaking in a dignified tone, "yes, I'm fixin' to do better.
Who acts: Charley · What happens: respond, straighten up, speak, dignify, fixin, do · To what, where: Charley, dignified tone · Speech: someone speaks here
This is a sentence of «Uncle Remus, His Songs and His Sayings» by Joel Chandler Harris, XVI. Uncle Remus Preaches to a Convert. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Charley), 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 | " | " | PUNCT | _ | 5 responded | punct |
| 2 | Yes | yes | INTJ | Polarity=Pos | 5 responded | discourse |
| 3 | , | , | PUNCT | _ | 2 Yes | punct |
| 4 | " | " | PUNCT | _ | 5 responded | punct |
| 5 | responded | respond | VERB | Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=1 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | root | root |
| 6 | Charley | Charley | PROPN | Number=Sing | 5 responded | obj |
| 7 | , | , | PUNCT | _ | 8 straightening | punct |
| 8 | straightening | straighten | VERB | Tense=Pres VerbForm=Part | 5 responded | advcl |
| 9 | himself | himself | PRON | Case=Acc Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs Reflex=Yes | 8 straightening | obj |
| 10 | up | up | ADP | _ | 8 straightening | compound:prt |
| 11 | and | and | CCONJ | _ | 12 speaking | cc |
| 12 | speaking | speak | VERB | Tense=Pres VerbForm=Part | 8 straightening | conj |
| 13 | in | in | ADP | _ | 16 tone | case |
| 14 | a | a | DET | Definite=Ind PronType=Art | 16 tone | det |
| 15 | dignified | dignify | VERB | Tense=Past VerbForm=Part Voice=Pass | 16 tone | amod |
| 16 | tone | tone | NOUN | Number=Sing | 12 speaking | obl |
| 17 | , | , | PUNCT | _ | 23 fixin | punct |
| 18 | " | " | PUNCT | _ | 23 fixin | punct |
| 19 | yes | yes | INTJ | Polarity=Pos | 23 fixin | discourse |
| 20 | , | , | PUNCT | _ | 19 yes | punct |
| 21 | I | I | PRON | Case=Nom Number=Sing Person=1 PronType=Prs | 23 fixin | nsubj |
| 22 | 'm | be | AUX | Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=1 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin | 23 fixin | aux |
| 23 | fixin | fixin | VERB | Tense=Pres VerbForm=Part | 8 straightening | conj |
| 24 | ' | ' | PUNCT | _ | 23 fixin | punct |
| 25 | to | to | PART | _ | 26 do | mark |
| 26 | do | do | VERB | VerbForm=Inf | 23 fixin | xcomp |
| 27 | better | well | ADV | Degree=Cmp | 26 do | advmod |
| 28 | . | . | PUNCT | _ | 5 responded | punct |
Pragmatics
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | respond speech: other | past | Charley | vn respond-113 «NP V»: agent=Agent | |||||
| 2 | straighten up | gerund | Charley not said here | Charley | vn bend-45.2 «NP V NP.patient»: agent=Agent himself=Patient | ||||
| 3 | speak speech: other | gerund | Charley not said here | a dignified tone | vn talk-37.5 «NP V»: agent=Agent | ||||
| 4 | dignify | participle | tree rules | ||||||
| 5 | fixin in a quote | present · progressive | Charley | tree rules | |||||
| 6 | do in a quote | to-infinitive | Charley not said here | well property | vn act-114-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
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/pg2306/62/6/