Grimms' Fairy Tales, The Old Man and His Grandson, sentence 7

They were once sitting thus when the little grandson of four years old began to gather together some bits of wood upon the ground.

Who acts: hands, little grandson · What happens: sit, begin, gather · To what, where: bits

This is a sentence of «Grimms' Fairy Tales» by Jacob Grimm, The Old Man and His Grandson. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (hands, little grandson), 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	They	they	PRON	Case=Nom Number=Plur Person=3 PronType=Prs	4 sitting	nsubj
2	were	be	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	4 sitting	aux
3	once	once	ADV	NumForm=Word NumType=Mult	4 sitting	advmod
4	sitting	sit	VERB	Tense=Pres VerbForm=Part	root	root
5	thus	thus	ADV	_	4 sitting	advmod
6	when	when	ADV	PronType=Int	14 began	advmod
7	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	9 grandson	det
8	little	little	ADJ	Degree=Pos	9 grandson	amod
9	grandson	grandson	NOUN	Number=Sing	14 began	nsubj
10	of	of	ADP	_	12 years	case
11	four	four	NUM	NumForm=Word NumType=Card	12 years	nummod
12	years	year	NOUN	Number=Plur	13 old	obl:unmarked
13	old	old	ADJ	Degree=Pos	9 grandson	amod
14	began	begin	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	4 sitting	parataxis
15	to	to	PART	_	16 gather	mark
16	gather	gather	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	14 began	xcomp
17	together	together	ADV	_	16 gather	advmod
18	some	some	DET	PronType=Ind	19 bits	det
19	bits	bit	NOUN	Number=Plur	16 gather	obj
20	of	of	ADP	_	21 wood	case
21	wood	wood	NOUN	Number=Sing	19 bits	nmod
22	upon	upon	ADP	_	24 ground	case
23	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	24 ground	det
24	ground	ground	NOUN	Number=Sing	21 wood	nmod
25	.	.	PUNCT	_	4 sitting	punct

Pragmatics

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	other	roles by
1	sit	past · progressive	hands = hand		once, thus property	vn assuming_position-50 «NP V»: agent=Agent
2	begin	past	the little grandson			vn begin-55.1-1-1 «NP V S_INF»: agent=Agent clause=Eventuality
3	gather	to-infinitive	the little grandson not said here	some bits of wood upon the ground	together property	vn deduce-97.2 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent bit=Theme

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: «Grimms' Fairy Tales» by Jacob Grimm, Project Gutenberg book 2591 (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/pg2591/27/7/