The Crimson Fairy Book, The Crimson Fairy Book, part 13, sentence 83

The boy ran to catch it, but though he ran very fast, and the bird seemed to flutter along very slowly, he never could quite come up with it; it was always just a little in advance.

Who acts: boy, bird, aim · What happens: run, catch, seem, flutter, not come up, be · To what, where: aim, advance

This is a sentence of «The Crimson Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Crimson Fairy Book, part 13. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (boy, bird, aim), 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 boy	det
2	boy	boy	NOUN	Number=Sing	3 ran	nsubj
3	ran	run	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	root	root
4	to	to	PART	_	5 catch	mark
5	catch	catch	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	3 ran	xcomp
6	it	it	PRON	Case=Acc Gender=Neut Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	5 catch	obj
7	,	,	PUNCT	_	11 ran	punct
8	but	but	CCONJ	_	11 ran	cc
9	though	though	SCONJ	_	11 ran	mark
10	he	he	PRON	Case=Nom Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	11 ran	nsubj
11	ran	run	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	3 ran	conj
12	very	very	ADV	_	13 fast	advmod
13	fast	fast	ADV	Degree=Pos	11 ran	advmod
14	,	,	PUNCT	_	18 seemed	punct
15	and	and	CCONJ	_	18 seemed	cc
16	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	17 bird	det
17	bird	bird	NOUN	Number=Sing	18 seemed	nsubj
18	seemed	seem	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	3 ran	conj
19	to	to	PART	_	20 flutter	mark
20	flutter	flutter	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	18 seemed	xcomp
21	along	along	ADV	_	20 flutter	advmod
22	very	very	ADV	_	23 slowly	advmod
23	slowly	slowly	ADV	_	20 flutter	advmod
24	,	,	PUNCT	_	29 come	punct
25	he	he	PRON	Case=Nom Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	29 come	nsubj
26	never	never	ADV	PronType=Neg	29 come	advmod
27	could	could	AUX	VerbForm=Fin	29 come	aux
28	quite	quite	ADV	_	29 come	advmod
29	come	come	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	20 flutter	conj
30	up	up	ADP	_	29 come	compound:prt
31	with	with	ADP	_	32 it	case
32	it	it	PRON	Case=Acc Gender=Neut Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	29 come	obl
33	;	;	PUNCT	_	39 little	punct
34	it	it	PRON	Case=Nom Gender=Neut Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	39 little	nsubj
35	was	be	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	39 little	cop
36	always	always	ADV	PronType=Tot	39 little	advmod
37	just	just	ADV	_	39 little	advmod
38	a	a	DET	Definite=Ind PronType=Art	39 little	det
39	little	little	ADJ	Degree=Pos	3 ran	parataxis
40	in	in	ADP	_	41 advance	case
41	advance	advance	NOUN	Number=Sing	39 little	obl
42	.	.	PUNCT	_	3 ran	punct

Pragmatics

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	where	other	roles by
1	run	past	the boy				vn use-105.1 «NP V NP S_INF»: agent=Agent clause=Eventuality
2	catch	to-infinitive	the boy not said here	aim			vn get-13.5.1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent it=Theme
3	run	past	boy			fast property	vn run-51.3.2-2-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme
4	seem	past	the bird				vn seem-109-1-1-1 «NP V S_INF»: agent=Theme clause=Attribute
5	flutter	to-infinitive	the bird not said here			along, slowly property	vn modes_of_being_with_motion-47.3 «NP V»: agent=Theme
6	not come up	could	boy			with aim	vn escape-51.1-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme
7	is	past	aim		advance	always, little 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 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/pg2435/13/83/