The Crimson Fairy Book, The Crimson Fairy Book, part 11, sentence 71
“Was it not pleasanter to play for a couple of hours on the pipes than to be stirring sauces all day long?
Who acts: it · What happens: not be, play, stir · To what, where: pipes, sauces
This is a sentence of «The Crimson Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Crimson Fairy Book, part 11. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (it), 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 | “ | " | PUNCT | _ | 5 pleasanter | punct |
| 2 | Was | be | AUX | Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | 5 pleasanter | cop |
| 3 | it | it | PRON | Case=Nom Gender=Neut Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs | 5 pleasanter | nsubj |
| 4 | not | not | PART | Polarity=Neg | 5 pleasanter | advmod |
| 5 | pleasanter | pleasant | ADJ | Degree=Cmp | root | root |
| 6 | to | to | PART | _ | 7 play | mark |
| 7 | play | play | VERB | VerbForm=Inf | 5 pleasanter | xcomp |
| 8 | for | for | ADP | _ | 10 couple | case |
| 9 | a | a | DET | Definite=Ind PronType=Art | 10 couple | det |
| 10 | couple | couple | NOUN | Number=Sing | 7 play | obl |
| 11 | of | of | ADP | _ | 12 hours | case |
| 12 | hours | hour | NOUN | Number=Plur | 10 couple | nmod |
| 13 | on | on | ADP | _ | 15 pipes | case |
| 14 | the | the | DET | Definite=Def PronType=Art | 15 pipes | det |
| 15 | pipes | pipe | NOUN | Number=Plur | 7 play | obl |
| 16 | than | than | SCONJ | _ | 19 stirring | mark |
| 17 | to | to | PART | _ | 19 stirring | mark |
| 18 | be | be | AUX | VerbForm=Inf | 19 stirring | aux |
| 19 | stirring | stir | VERB | Tense=Pres VerbForm=Part | 7 play | advcl |
| 20 | sauces | sauce | NOUN | Number=Plur | 19 stirring | obj |
| 21 | all | all | DET | PronType=Tot | 22 day | det |
| 22 | day | day | NOUN | Number=Sing | 19 stirring | obl:unmarked |
| 23 | long | long | ADV | Degree=Pos | 19 stirring | advmod |
| 24 | ? | ? | PUNCT | _ | 5 pleasanter | punct |
Pragmatics
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | not is in a quote | past | it | pleasant property | tree rules | ||||
| 2 | play in a quote | to-infinitive | the pipes | for a couple of hours | vn use-105.1 «NP V NP PP.predicate»: agent=Agent for couple=Eventuality | ||||
| 3 | stir in a quote | to-infinitive · progressive | sauces | day | long property | vn amuse-31.1 «NP V NP»: agent=Stimulus sauce=Experiencer |
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 Crimson Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Project Gutenberg book 2435 (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/pg2435/11/71/