The Book of Dragons, The Fiery Dragon], sentence 17

The thing, whatever it was, did look rather like a dragon--but then it was too small; and it looked rather like a lizard--only then it was too big.

Who acts: thing · What happens: look, be

This is a sentence of «The Book of Dragons» by E. Nesbit, The Fiery Dragon]. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (thing), 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 thing	det
2	thing	thing	NOUN	Number=Sing	9 look	nsubj
3	,	,	PUNCT	_	4 whatever	punct
4	whatever	whatever	PRON	PronType=Rel	2 thing	appos
5	it	it	PRON	Case=Nom Gender=Neut Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	6 was	nsubj
6	was	be	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	4 whatever	acl:relcl
7	,	,	PUNCT	_	2 thing	punct
8	did	do	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	9 look	aux
9	look	look	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	root	root
10	rather	rather	ADV	_	13 dragon	advmod
11	like	like	ADP	_	13 dragon	case
12	a	a	DET	Definite=Ind PronType=Art	13 dragon	det
13	dragon	dragon	NOUN	Number=Sing	9 look	obl
14	--	--	PUNCT	_	20 small	punct
15	but	but	CCONJ	_	20 small	cc
16	then	then	ADV	PronType=Dem	20 small	advmod
17	it	it	PRON	Case=Nom Gender=Neut Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	20 small	nsubj
18	was	be	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	20 small	cop
19	too	too	ADV	_	20 small	advmod
20	small	small	ADJ	Degree=Pos	9 look	conj
21	;	;	PUNCT	_	24 looked	punct
22	and	and	CCONJ	_	24 looked	cc
23	it	it	PRON	Case=Nom Gender=Neut Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	24 looked	nsubj
24	looked	look	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	9 look	parataxis
25	rather	rather	ADV	_	24 looked	advmod
26	like	like	ADP	_	28 lizard	case
27	a	a	DET	Definite=Ind PronType=Art	28 lizard	det
28	lizard	lizard	NOUN	Number=Sing	24 looked	obl
29	--	--	PUNCT	_	35 big	punct
30	only	only	ADV	_	35 big	advmod
31	then	then	ADV	PronType=Dem	35 big	advmod
32	it	it	PRON	Case=Nom Gender=Neut Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	35 big	nsubj
33	was	be	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	35 big	cop
34	too	too	ADV	_	35 big	advmod
35	big	big	ADJ	Degree=Pos	9 look	conj
36	.	.	PUNCT	_	9 look	punct

Pragmatics

#	verb	tense, mood	who	when	other	roles by
1	look	past · do-support	the thing		like a dragon	vn stimulus_subject-30.4 «NP V PP.attribute»: agent=Stimulus
2	is	past	thing	then	small property	tree rules
3	look	past	thing		like a lizard	vn stimulus_subject-30.4 «NP V PP.attribute»: agent=Stimulus
4	is	past	thing	then	big property	tree rules

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.

This page in Markdown → https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg23661/13/17/