The Book of Dragons, The Dragon Tamers], sentence 11

Even the lords of the castle in the good old times had never known where those steps led to, but every now and then they would kick a prisoner down the steps in their lighthearted, hopeful way, and sure enough, the prisoners never came back.

Who acts: steps, prisoners · What happens: not know, lead, kick, not come back · To what, where: lords, prisoner · Speech: someone speaks here

This is a sentence of «The Book of Dragons» by E. Nesbit, The Dragon Tamers]. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (steps, prisoners), 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	Even	even	ADV	_	3 lords	advmod
2	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	3 lords	det
3	lords	lord	NOUN	Number=Plur	14 known	nsubj:pass
4	of	of	ADP	_	6 castle	case
5	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	6 castle	det
6	castle	castle	NOUN	Number=Sing	3 lords	nmod
7	in	in	ADP	_	11 times	case
8	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	11 times	det
9	good	good	ADJ	Degree=Pos	11 times	amod
10	old	old	ADJ	Degree=Pos	11 times	amod
11	times	time	NOUN	Number=Plur	6 castle	nmod
12	had	have	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	14 known	aux
13	never	never	ADV	PronType=Neg	14 known	advmod
14	known	know	VERB	Tense=Past VerbForm=Part Voice=Pass	root	root
15	where	where	ADV	PronType=Rel	18 led	advmod
16	those	that	DET	Number=Plur PronType=Dem	17 steps	det
17	steps	step	NOUN	Number=Plur	18 led	nsubj
18	led	lead	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	14 known	ccomp
19	to	to	ADP	_	18 led	obl
20	,	,	PUNCT	_	42 sure	punct
21	but	but	CCONJ	_	42 sure	cc
22	every	every	DET	PronType=Tot	23 now	det
23	now	now	ADV	PronType=Dem	42 sure	advmod
24	and	and	CCONJ	_	28 kick	cc
25	then	then	ADV	PronType=Dem	28 kick	advmod
26	they	they	PRON	Case=Nom Number=Plur Person=3 PronType=Prs	28 kick	nsubj
27	would	would	AUX	VerbForm=Fin	28 kick	aux
28	kick	kick	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	23 now	conj
29	a	a	DET	Definite=Ind PronType=Art	30 prisoner	det
30	prisoner	prisoner	NOUN	Number=Sing	28 kick	obj
31	down	down	ADP	_	33 steps	case
32	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	33 steps	det
33	steps	step	NOUN	Number=Plur	28 kick	obl
34	in	in	ADP	_	39 way	case
35	their	their	PRON	Case=Gen Number=Plur Person=3 Poss=Yes PronType=Prs	39 way	nmod:poss
36	lighthearted	lighthearted	ADJ	Degree=Pos	39 way	amod
37	,	,	PUNCT	_	36 lighthearted	punct
38	hopeful	hopeful	ADJ	Degree=Pos	39 way	amod
39	way	way	NOUN	Number=Sing	33 steps	nmod
40	,	,	PUNCT	_	42 sure	punct
41	and	and	CCONJ	_	42 sure	cc
42	sure	sure	ADJ	Degree=Pos	14 known	conj
43	enough	enough	ADV	_	42 sure	advmod
44	,	,	PUNCT	_	48 came	punct
45	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	46 prisoners	det
46	prisoners	prisoner	NOUN	Number=Plur	48 came	nsubj
47	never	never	ADV	PronType=Neg	48 came	advmod
48	came	come	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	42 sure	ccomp
49	back	back	ADV	_	48 came	advmod
50	.	.	PUNCT	_	14 known	punct

Pragmatics

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	when	other	roles by
1	not know	past · perfect · passive		the lords of the castle in the good old times			tree rules
2	lead	past	that steps				vn result-27.2 «NP V PP»: agent=Precondition
3	kick	would	steps = step	a prisoner	then	down the steps in steps's lighthearted hopeful way	vn split-23.2 «NP V NP apart»: agent=Agent prisoner=Patient
4	not come back	past	the prisoners				vn escape-51.1-1 «NP V»: agent=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: «The Book of Dragons» by E. Nesbit, Project Gutenberg book 23661 (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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