The Crimson Fairy Book, The Crimson Fairy Book, part 5, sentence 16

But they had hardly begun before a messenger came to say that the king wanted to see them.

Who acts: thanks, messenger, king · What happens: begin, come, say, want, see · To what, where: thanks · Speech: someone speaks here

This is a sentence of «The Crimson Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Crimson Fairy Book, part 5. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (thanks, messenger, king), 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	_	5 begun	cc
2	they	they	PRON	Case=Nom Number=Plur Person=3 PronType=Prs	5 begun	nsubj
3	had	have	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	5 begun	aux
4	hardly	hardly	ADV	_	5 begun	advmod
5	begun	begin	VERB	Tense=Past VerbForm=Part	root	root
6	before	before	SCONJ	_	9 came	mark
7	a	a	DET	Definite=Ind PronType=Art	8 messenger	det
8	messenger	messenger	NOUN	Number=Sing	9 came	nsubj
9	came	come	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	5 begun	advcl
10	to	to	PART	_	11 say	mark
11	say	say	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	9 came	xcomp
12	that	that	SCONJ	_	15 wanted	mark
13	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	14 king	det
14	king	king	NOUN	Number=Sing	15 wanted	nsubj
15	wanted	want	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	11 say	ccomp
16	to	to	PART	_	17 see	mark
17	see	see	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	15 wanted	xcomp
18	them	they	PRON	Case=Acc Number=Plur Person=3 PronType=Prs	17 see	obj
19	.	.	PUNCT	_	5 begun	punct

Pragmatics

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	other	roles by
1	begin	past · perfect	thanks		hardly property	vn begin-55.1-1-1 «NP.eventuality V»: agent=Eventuality
2	come	past	a messenger			tree rules
3	say speech: assert	to-infinitive	a messenger not said here			vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent clause=Topic
4	want	past	the king			vn want-32.1-1-1 «NP V NP S_INF»: agent=Pivot clause=Theme
5	see not said to happen	to-infinitive	the king not said here	thanks		vn comprehend-87.2-1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Experiencer they=Stimulus

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/pg2435/5/16/