The Book of Dragons, Opening, part 9, sentence 44

The dragon went very fast, only stopping to eat the collector and the sportsman, who were still struggling to go up the slide--vainly, because they had no tails, and had never even heard of the fourth dimension.

Who acts: dragon, collector · What happens: go, stop, eat, struggle, go up, have · To what, where: collector, slide, tails

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 (dragon, collector), 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 dragon	det
2	dragon	dragon	NOUN	Number=Sing	3 went	nsubj
3	went	go	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	root	root
4	very	very	ADV	_	5 fast	advmod
5	fast	fast	ADV	Degree=Pos	3 went	advmod
6	,	,	PUNCT	_	8 stopping	punct
7	only	only	ADV	_	8 stopping	advmod
8	stopping	stop	VERB	Tense=Pres VerbForm=Part	3 went	advcl
9	to	to	PART	_	10 eat	mark
10	eat	eat	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	8 stopping	xcomp
11	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	12 collector	det
12	collector	collector	NOUN	Number=Sing	10 eat	obj
13	and	and	CCONJ	_	15 sportsman	cc
14	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	15 sportsman	det
15	sportsman	sportsman	NOUN	Number=Sing	12 collector	conj
16	,	,	PUNCT	_	20 struggling	punct
17	who	who	PRON	PronType=Rel	20 struggling	nsubj
18	were	be	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	20 struggling	aux
19	still	still	ADV	_	20 struggling	advmod
20	struggling	struggle	VERB	Tense=Pres VerbForm=Part	12 collector	conj
21	to	to	PART	_	22 go	mark
22	go	go	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	20 struggling	xcomp
23	up	up	ADP	_	22 go	compound:prt
24	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	25 slide	det
25	slide	slide	NOUN	Number=Sing	22 go	obj
26	--	--	PUNCT	_	27 vainly	punct
27	vainly	vainly	ADV	_	22 go	advmod
28	,	,	PUNCT	_	31 had	punct
29	because	because	SCONJ	_	31 had	mark
30	they	they	PRON	Case=Nom Number=Plur Person=3 PronType=Prs	31 had	nsubj
31	had	have	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	10 eat	advcl
32	no	no	DET	PronType=Neg	33 tails	det
33	tails	tail	NOUN	Number=Plur	31 had	obj
34	,	,	PUNCT	_	39 heard	punct
35	and	and	CCONJ	_	39 heard	cc
36	had	have	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	39 heard	aux
37	never	never	ADV	PronType=Neg	39 heard	advmod
38	even	even	ADV	_	39 heard	advmod
39	heard	hear	VERB	Tense=Past VerbForm=Part	3 went	parataxis
40	of	of	ADP	_	43 dimension	case
41	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	43 dimension	det
42	fourth	fourth	ADJ	Degree=Pos NumForm=Word NumType=Ord	43 dimension	amod
43	dimension	dimension	NOUN	Number=Sing	39 heard	obl
44	.	.	PUNCT	_	3 went	punct

Pragmatics

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	when	other	roles by
1	go	past	the dragon			fast property	vn disappearance-48.2-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme
2	stop	gerund	the dragon not said here				vn stop-55.4-1-1 «NP V S_ING»: agent=Affector clause=Eventuality
3	eat	to-infinitive	the dragon not said here	the collector and the sportsman			vn eat-39.1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent collector=Patient
4	struggle	past · progressive	the collector and the sportsman		still		tree rules
5	go up	to-infinitive	the collector and the sportsman not said here	the slide		vainly property	vn calibratable_cos-45.6.1-1 «NP.patient V NP.extent PP.source PP.goal»: agent=Patient slide=Extent
6	have	past	collector	no tails			vn birth-28.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent tail=Patient
7	not hear	past · perfect				of the fourth dimension	vn see-30.1-1-1 «NP V PP.stimulus»: agent=Experiencer of dimension=Stimulus

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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