The Crimson Fairy Book, The Crimson Fairy Book, part 36, sentence 3
Long, long ago, as far back as the time when animals spoke, there lived a community of cats in a deserted house they had taken possession of not far from a large town.
Who acts: animals · What happens: speak, live, desert, take, possess · To what, where: community, deserted house, possession, large town · Speech: someone speaks here
This is a sentence of «The Crimson Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Crimson Fairy Book, part 36. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (animals), 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 | Long | long | ADJ | Degree=Pos | root | root |
| 2 | , | , | PUNCT | _ | 4 ago | punct |
| 3 | long | long | ADV | Degree=Pos | 4 ago | advmod |
| 4 | ago | ago | ADV | _ | 1 Long | advmod |
| 5 | , | , | PUNCT | _ | 11 time | punct |
| 6 | as | as | ADV | _ | 7 far | advmod |
| 7 | far | far | ADV | Degree=Pos | 8 back | advmod |
| 8 | back | back | ADV | _ | 11 time | advmod |
| 9 | as | as | ADP | _ | 11 time | case |
| 10 | the | the | DET | Definite=Def PronType=Art | 11 time | det |
| 11 | time | time | NOUN | Number=Sing | 1 Long | conj |
| 12 | when | when | ADV | PronType=Int | 14 spoke | advmod |
| 13 | animals | animal | NOUN | Number=Plur | 14 spoke | nsubj |
| 14 | spoke | speak | VERB | Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | 11 time | acl:relcl |
| 15 | , | , | PUNCT | _ | 17 lived | punct |
| 16 | there | there | PRON | PronType=Dem | 17 lived | expl |
| 17 | lived | live | VERB | Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | 11 time | advcl |
| 18 | a | a | DET | Definite=Ind PronType=Art | 19 community | det |
| 19 | community | community | NOUN | Number=Sing | 17 lived | obj |
| 20 | of | of | ADP | _ | 21 cats | case |
| 21 | cats | cat | NOUN | Number=Plur | 19 community | nmod |
| 22 | in | in | ADP | _ | 25 house | case |
| 23 | a | a | DET | Definite=Ind PronType=Art | 25 house | det |
| 24 | deserted | desert | VERB | Tense=Past VerbForm=Part Voice=Pass | 25 house | amod |
| 25 | house | house | NOUN | Number=Sing | 17 lived | obl |
| 26 | they | they | PRON | Case=Nom Number=Plur Person=3 PronType=Prs | 28 taken | nsubj |
| 27 | had | have | AUX | Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | 28 taken | aux |
| 28 | taken | take | VERB | Tense=Past VerbForm=Part | 25 house | acl:relcl |
| 29 | possession | possession | NOUN | Number=Sing | 28 taken | obj |
| 30 | of | of | ADP | _ | 36 town | case |
| 31 | not | not | PART | Polarity=Neg | 32 far | advmod |
| 32 | far | far | ADV | Degree=Pos | 36 town | advmod |
| 33 | from | from | ADP | _ | 36 town | case |
| 34 | a | a | DET | Definite=Ind PronType=Art | 36 town | det |
| 35 | large | large | ADJ | Degree=Pos | 36 town | amod |
| 36 | town | town | NOUN | Number=Sing | 29 possession | nmod |
| 37 | . | . | PUNCT | _ | 1 Long | punct |
Pragmatics
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | speak speech: other | past | animals | vn talk-37.5 «NP V»: agent=Agent | |||||
| 2 | live | past | a community of cats | a deserted house; there | vn lodge-46 «NP V ADV»: agent=Theme community=Location | ||||
| 3 | desert | participle | vn leave-51.2-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme | ||||||
| 4 | take | past · perfect | animals = animal | possession of a large town | vn bring-11.3 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent possession=Theme | ||||
| 5 | possess | a large town | nom possession «act transitive»: of=patient |
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/pg2435/36/3/