The Book of Dragons, Opening, part 5, sentence 84

When the dragons flew against these towers, they stuck fast, as flies and wasps do on the sticky papers in the kitchen; and when the towers were covered all over with dragons, the police inspector used to set fire to the towers, and burnt them and dragons and all.

Who acts: dragons, towers, flies, police inspector · What happens: fly, stick, do, cover, use, set · To what, where: towers, sticky papers, fire

This is a sentence of «The Book of Dragons» by E. Nesbit, Opening, part 5. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (dragons, towers, flies, police inspector), 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	When	when	SCONJ	_	4 flew	mark
2	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	3 dragons	det
3	dragons	dragon	NOUN	Number=Plur	4 flew	nsubj
4	flew	fly	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	10 stuck	advcl
5	against	against	ADP	_	7 towers	case
6	these	this	DET	Number=Plur PronType=Dem	7 towers	det
7	towers	tower	NOUN	Number=Plur	4 flew	obl
8	,	,	PUNCT	_	4 flew	punct
9	they	they	PRON	Case=Nom Number=Plur Person=3 PronType=Prs	10 stuck	nsubj
10	stuck	stick	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	root	root
11	fast	fast	ADV	Degree=Pos	10 stuck	advmod
12	,	,	PUNCT	_	17 do	punct
13	as	as	SCONJ	_	17 do	mark
14	flies	fly	NOUN	Number=Plur	17 do	nsubj
15	and	and	CCONJ	_	16 wasps	cc
16	wasps	wasp	NOUN	Number=Plur	14 flies	conj
17	do	do	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	10 stuck	conj
18	on	on	ADP	_	21 papers	case
19	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	21 papers	det
20	sticky	sticky	ADJ	Degree=Pos	21 papers	amod
21	papers	paper	NOUN	Number=Plur	17 do	obl
22	in	in	ADP	_	24 kitchen	case
23	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	24 kitchen	det
24	kitchen	kitchen	NOUN	Number=Sing	21 papers	nmod
25	;	;	PUNCT	_	31 covered	punct
26	and	and	CCONJ	_	31 covered	cc
27	when	when	SCONJ	_	31 covered	mark
28	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	29 towers	det
29	towers	tower	NOUN	Number=Plur	31 covered	nsubj:pass
30	were	be	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	31 covered	aux:pass
31	covered	cover	VERB	Tense=Past VerbForm=Part Voice=Pass	10 stuck	conj
32	all	all	ADV	_	33 over	advmod
33	over	over	ADV	_	31 covered	advmod
34	with	with	ADP	_	35 dragons	case
35	dragons	dragon	NOUN	Number=Plur	31 covered	obl
36	,	,	PUNCT	_	40 used	punct
37	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	39 inspector	det
38	police	police	NOUN	Number=Plur	39 inspector	compound
39	inspector	inspector	NOUN	Number=Sing	40 used	nsubj
40	used	use	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	31 covered	conj
41	to	to	PART	_	42 set	mark
42	set	set	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	40 used	xcomp
43	fire	fire	NOUN	Number=Sing	42 set	obj
44	to	to	ADP	_	46 towers	case
45	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	46 towers	det
46	towers	tower	NOUN	Number=Plur	42 set	obl
47	,	,	PUNCT	_	49 burnt	punct
48	and	and	CCONJ	_	49 burnt	cc
49	burnt	burnt	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	40 used	parataxis
50	them	they	PRON	Case=Acc Number=Plur Person=3 PronType=Prs	49 burnt	obj
51	and	and	CCONJ	_	52 dragons	cc
52	dragons	dragon	NOUN	Number=Plur	49 burnt	conj
53	and	and	CCONJ	_	54 all	cc
54	all	all	DET	PronType=Tot	52 dragons	conj
55	.	.	PUNCT	_	10 stuck	punct

Pragmatics

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	where	other	roles by
1	fly	past	the dragons		this towers		vn spatial_configuration-47.6-1 «NP V NP.theme PP»: agent=Agent against tower=Location
2	stick	past	towers = tower			fast property	vn shake-22.3-2 «NP V ADV-Middle»: agent=Patient
3	do	present	flies and wasps		the sticky papers in the kitchen		vn act-114-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent
4	cover	past · passive		the towers		with dragons; over property	vn fill-9.8-1 «NP V NP PP.theme»: subject=Destination with dragon=Theme
5	use	past	the police inspector				vn use-105.1 «NP V NP S_INF»: agent=Agent clause=Eventuality
6	set	to-infinitive	the police inspector not said here	fire		to the towers	vn other_cos-45.4-1 «NP V NP ADJ»: agent=Patient fire=Result
7	burnt	past		towers = tower			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/pg23661/5/84/