The Book of Dragons, Opening, part 9, sentence 19

Millions of moth voices answered, with laughter as soft as moth wings, "We should be a poor set of fellows if we couldn't over eat ourselves once in a while--to oblige a friend."

Who acts: Millions, We · What happens: answer, be, not eat, oblige · To what, where: poor set, ourselves, friend · Speech: someone speaks here

This is a sentence of «The Book of Dragons» by E. Nesbit, Opening, part 9. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Millions, We), 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	Millions	million	NOUN	Number=Plur	5 answered	nsubj
2	of	of	ADP	_	4 voices	case
3	moth	moth	NOUN	Number=Sing	4 voices	compound
4	voices	voice	NOUN	Number=Plur	1 Millions	nmod
5	answered	answer	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	root	root
6	,	,	PUNCT	_	8 laughter	punct
7	with	with	ADP	_	8 laughter	case
8	laughter	laughter	NOUN	Number=Sing	5 answered	obl
9	as	as	ADP	_	10 soft	case
10	soft	soft	ADJ	Degree=Pos	5 answered	obl
11	as	as	ADP	_	13 wings	case
12	moth	moth	NOUN	Number=Sing	13 wings	compound
13	wings	wing	NOUN	Number=Plur	10 soft	obl
14	,	,	PUNCT	_	21 set	punct
15	"	"	PUNCT	_	21 set	punct
16	We	we	PRON	Case=Nom Number=Plur Person=1 PronType=Prs	21 set	nsubj
17	should	should	AUX	VerbForm=Fin	21 set	aux
18	be	be	AUX	VerbForm=Inf	21 set	cop
19	a	a	DET	Definite=Ind PronType=Art	21 set	det
20	poor	poor	ADJ	Degree=Pos	21 set	amod
21	set	set	NOUN	Number=Sing	5 answered	parataxis
22	of	of	ADP	_	23 fellows	case
23	fellows	fellow	NOUN	Number=Plur	21 set	nmod
24	if	if	SCONJ	_	29 eat	mark
25	we	we	PRON	Case=Nom Number=Plur Person=1 PronType=Prs	29 eat	nsubj
26	could	could	AUX	VerbForm=Fin	29 eat	aux
27	n't	not	PART	Polarity=Neg	29 eat	advmod
28	over	over	ADV	_	29 eat	advmod
29	eat	eat	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	21 set	acl
30	ourselves	ourselves	PRON	Case=Acc Number=Plur Person=1 PronType=Prs Reflex=Yes	29 eat	obj
31	once	once	ADV	NumForm=Word NumType=Mult	29 eat	advmod
32	in	in	ADP	_	34 while	case
33	a	a	DET	Definite=Ind PronType=Art	34 while	det
34	while	while	NOUN	Number=Sing	29 eat	obl
35	--	--	PUNCT	_	37 oblige	punct
36	to	to	PART	_	37 oblige	mark
37	oblige	oblige	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	29 eat	conj
38	a	a	DET	Definite=Ind PronType=Art	39 friend	det
39	friend	friend	NOUN	Number=Sing	37 oblige	obj
40	.	.	PUNCT	_	5 answered	punct
41	"	"	PUNCT	_	5 answered	punct

Pragmatics

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	when	other	roles by
1	answer speech: assert	past	Millions of moth voices			with laughter; as soft	tree rules
2	is a in a quote	should	We	a poor set		of fellows	tree rules
3	not eat a condition, not said to happen, in a quote	could	we	ourselves	while	once, over property	vn eat-39.1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent ourselves=Patient
4	oblige in a quote	to-infinitive	we not said here	a friend			vn compel-59.1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent friend=Patient

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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