Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen, The Neighbouring Families, sentence 78

All the sparrows, and even a crow--and an old boy he was too--were startled at the sight; but still they flew after her to learn what kind of strange bird she was.

Who acts: boy, sparrows · What happens: be, startle, fly, learn · To what, where: old boy, sparrows, sight, kind

This is a sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, The Neighbouring Families. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (boy, sparrows), 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	All	all	DET	PronType=Tot	3 sparrows	det:predet
2	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	3 sparrows	det
3	sparrows	sparrow	NOUN	Number=Plur	19 startled	nsubj:pass
4	,	,	PUNCT	_	8 crow	punct
5	and	and	CCONJ	_	8 crow	cc
6	even	even	ADV	_	8 crow	advmod
7	a	a	DET	Definite=Ind PronType=Art	8 crow	det
8	crow	crow	NOUN	Number=Sing	3 sparrows	conj
9	--	--	PUNCT	_	13 boy	punct
10	and	and	CCONJ	_	13 boy	cc
11	an	a	DET	Definite=Ind PronType=Art	13 boy	det
12	old	old	ADJ	Degree=Pos	13 boy	amod
13	boy	boy	NOUN	Number=Sing	8 crow	appos
14	he	he	PRON	Case=Nom Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	16 too	nsubj
15	was	be	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	16 too	cop
16	too	too	ADV	_	13 boy	acl:relcl
17	--	--	PUNCT	_	3 sparrows	punct
18	were	be	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	19 startled	aux:pass
19	startled	startle	VERB	Tense=Past VerbForm=Part Voice=Pass	root	root
20	at	at	ADP	_	22 sight	case
21	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	22 sight	det
22	sight	sight	NOUN	Number=Sing	19 startled	obl
23	;	;	PUNCT	_	19 startled	punct
24	but	but	CCONJ	_	27 flew	cc
25	still	still	ADV	_	27 flew	advmod
26	they	they	PRON	Case=Nom Number=Plur Person=3 PronType=Prs	27 flew	nsubj
27	flew	fly	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	19 startled	conj
28	after	after	ADP	_	29 her	case
29	her	she	PRON	Case=Acc Gender=Fem Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	27 flew	obl
30	to	to	PART	_	31 learn	mark
31	learn	learn	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	27 flew	advcl
32	what	what	DET	PronType=Int	33 kind	det
33	kind	kind	NOUN	Number=Sing	31 learn	obj
34	of	of	ADP	_	36 bird	case
35	strange	strange	ADJ	Degree=Pos	36 bird	amod
36	bird	bird	NOUN	Number=Sing	33 kind	nmod
37	she	she	PRON	Case=Nom Gender=Fem Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	38 was	nsubj
38	was	be	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	36 bird	acl:relcl
39	.	.	PUNCT	_	19 startled	punct

Pragmatics

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	is	past	boy	a old boy not said here			too property	tree rules
2	startle	past · passive		all sparrows and a crow	the sight			vn amuse-31.1 «NP V NP»: subject=Experiencer
3	fly	past	sparrows = sparrow			after fly; still		vn spatial_configuration-47.6-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme
4	learn	to-infinitive	sparrows = sparrow not said here	what kind of strange bird				vn learn-14-2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent kind=Topic

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: «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, Project Gutenberg book 27200 (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/pg27200/124/78/