The Crimson Fairy Book, The Crimson Fairy Book, part 22, sentence 16

He was just going to begin to eat when the old man appeared, and asked if he could not spare him a little.

Who acts: man, old man · What happens: go, begin, eat, appear, ask, not spare · To what, where: road

This is a sentence of «The Crimson Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Crimson Fairy Book, part 22. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (man, old man), 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	He	he	PRON	Case=Nom Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	4 going	nsubj
2	was	be	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	4 going	aux
3	just	just	ADV	_	4 going	advmod
4	going	go	VERB	Tense=Pres VerbForm=Part	root	root
5	to	to	PART	_	6 begin	mark
6	begin	begin	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	4 going	xcomp
7	to	to	PART	_	8 eat	mark
8	eat	eat	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	6 begin	xcomp
9	when	when	SCONJ	_	13 appeared	mark
10	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	12 man	det
11	old	old	ADJ	Degree=Pos	12 man	amod
12	man	man	NOUN	Number=Sing	13 appeared	nsubj
13	appeared	appear	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	8 eat	advcl
14	,	,	PUNCT	_	16 asked	punct
15	and	and	CCONJ	_	16 asked	cc
16	asked	ask	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	13 appeared	conj
17	if	if	SCONJ	_	21 spare	mark
18	he	he	PRON	Case=Nom Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	21 spare	nsubj
19	could	could	AUX	VerbForm=Fin	21 spare	aux
20	not	not	PART	Polarity=Neg	21 spare	advmod
21	spare	spare	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	16 asked	ccomp
22	him	he	PRON	Case=Acc Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	21 spare	obj
23	a	a	DET	Definite=Ind PronType=Art	24 little	det
24	little	little	ADJ	Degree=Pos	21 spare	obl:unmarked
25	.	.	PUNCT	_	4 going	punct

Pragmatics

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	other	roles by
1	go	past · progressive	man			vn say-37.7 «NP V S-Quote»: agent=Agent clause=Topic
2	begin	to-infinitive	man not said here			vn begin-55.1-1-1 «NP V S_INF»: agent=Agent clause=Eventuality
3	eat	to-infinitive	man not said here			vn eat-39.1-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent
4	appear	past	the old man			vn appear-48.1.1 «NP V»: agent=Theme
5	ask speech: ask	past	the old man not said here			vn inquire-37.1.2 «NP V how S»: agent=Agent clause=Topic
6	not spare a condition, not said to happen	could	man	road	a little obl:unmarked	vn bill-54.5 «NP V NP NP.asset»: agent=Agent he=Asset

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.

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