The Crimson Fairy Book, The Crimson Fairy Book, part 14, sentence 95
But night was drawing on, and the darkness grew so thick that it seemed as if it could be cut with a knife.
Who acts: darkness, it · What happens: draw on, grow, seem, cut · To what, where: darkness
This is a sentence of «The Crimson Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Crimson Fairy Book, part 14. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (darkness, 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 | But | but | CCONJ | _ | 4 drawing | cc |
| 2 | night | night | NOUN | Number=Sing | 4 drawing | obl:unmarked |
| 3 | was | be | AUX | Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | 4 drawing | aux |
| 4 | drawing | draw | VERB | Tense=Pres VerbForm=Part | root | root |
| 5 | on | on | ADP | _ | 4 drawing | compound:prt |
| 6 | , | , | PUNCT | _ | 10 grew | punct |
| 7 | and | and | CCONJ | _ | 10 grew | cc |
| 8 | the | the | DET | Definite=Def PronType=Art | 9 darkness | det |
| 9 | darkness | darkness | NOUN | Number=Sing | 10 grew | nsubj |
| 10 | grew | grow | VERB | Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | 4 drawing | conj |
| 11 | so | so | ADV | _ | 12 thick | advmod |
| 12 | thick | thick | ADJ | Degree=Pos | 10 grew | xcomp |
| 13 | that | that | SCONJ | _ | 15 seemed | mark |
| 14 | it | it | PRON | Case=Nom Gender=Neut Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs | 15 seemed | nsubj |
| 15 | seemed | seem | VERB | Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | 12 thick | advcl |
| 16 | as | as | SCONJ | _ | 21 cut | mark |
| 17 | if | if | SCONJ | _ | 21 cut | mark |
| 18 | it | it | PRON | Case=Nom Gender=Neut Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs | 21 cut | nsubj:pass |
| 19 | could | could | AUX | VerbForm=Fin | 21 cut | aux |
| 20 | be | be | AUX | VerbForm=Inf | 21 cut | aux:pass |
| 21 | cut | cut | VERB | Tense=Past VerbForm=Part Voice=Pass | 15 seemed | xcomp |
| 22 | with | with | ADP | _ | 24 knife | case |
| 23 | a | a | DET | Definite=Ind PronType=Art | 24 knife | det |
| 24 | knife | knife | NOUN | Number=Sing | 21 cut | obl |
| 25 | . | . | PUNCT | _ | 4 drawing | punct |
Pragmatics
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | draw on | past · progressive | night | vn scribble-25.2-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent | |||||
| 2 | grow | past | the darkness | thick property | vn appear-48.1.1 «NP V»: agent=Theme | ||||
| 3 | seem | past | it | vn seem-109-1-1-1 «NP V S_INF»: agent=Theme clause=Attribute | |||||
| 4 | cut a condition, not said to happen | could · passive | darkness | with a knife | vn cut-21.1-1 «NP V NP»: subject=Patient with knife=Instrument |
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/pg2435/14/95/