Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen, The Old Grave-stone, sentence 16

They were the oldest residents in the town, and people said they possessed a ton of gold, yet they were always very plainly dressed, in the coarsest stuff, but with linen of the purest whiteness.

Who acts: people · What happens: be, say, possess, dress · To what, where: oldest residents, town, ton, people, coarsest stuff · Speech: someone speaks here

This is a sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, The Old Grave-stone. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (people), 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	5 residents	nsubj
2	were	be	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	5 residents	cop
3	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	5 residents	det
4	oldest	old	ADJ	Degree=Sup	5 residents	amod
5	residents	resident	NOUN	Number=Plur	root	root
6	in	in	ADP	_	8 town	case
7	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	8 town	det
8	town	town	NOUN	Number=Sing	5 residents	nmod
9	,	,	PUNCT	_	12 said	punct
10	and	and	CCONJ	_	12 said	cc
11	people	people	NOUN	Number=Plur	12 said	nsubj
12	said	say	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=1 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	5 residents	conj
13	they	they	PRON	Case=Nom Number=Plur Person=3 PronType=Prs	14 possessed	nsubj
14	possessed	possess	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	12 said	ccomp
15	a	a	DET	Definite=Ind PronType=Art	16 ton	det
16	ton	ton	NOUN	Number=Sing	14 possessed	obj
17	of	of	ADP	_	18 gold	case
18	gold	gold	NOUN	Number=Sing	16 ton	nmod
19	,	,	PUNCT	_	26 dressed	punct
20	yet	yet	CCONJ	_	26 dressed	cc
21	they	they	PRON	Case=Nom Number=Plur Person=3 PronType=Prs	26 dressed	nsubj
22	were	be	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	26 dressed	aux:pass
23	always	always	ADV	PronType=Tot	26 dressed	advmod
24	very	very	ADV	_	25 plainly	advmod
25	plainly	plainly	ADV	_	26 dressed	advmod
26	dressed	dress	VERB	Tense=Past VerbForm=Part Voice=Pass	12 said	conj
27	,	,	PUNCT	_	31 stuff	punct
28	in	in	ADP	_	31 stuff	case
29	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	31 stuff	det
30	coarsest	coarse	ADJ	Degree=Sup	31 stuff	amod
31	stuff	stuff	NOUN	Number=Sing	26 dressed	obl
32	,	,	PUNCT	_	35 linen	punct
33	but	but	CCONJ	_	35 linen	cc
34	with	with	ADP	_	35 linen	case
35	linen	linen	NOUN	Number=Sing	12 said	obl
36	of	of	ADP	_	39 whiteness	case
37	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	39 whiteness	det
38	purest	pure	ADJ	Degree=Sup	39 whiteness	amod
39	whiteness	whiteness	NOUN	Number=Sing	35 linen	nmod
40	.	.	PUNCT	_	5 residents	punct

Pragmatics

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	where	other	roles by
1	is a	past	people	the oldest residents	the town		tree rules
2	say speech: assert	past	people			with linen of the purest whiteness	vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent clause=Topic
3	possess	past	people	a ton of gold			vn own-100.1 «NP V NP»: agent=Pivot ton=Theme
4	dress	past · passive		people	the coarsest stuff	always, plainly property	vn dress-41.1.1-1-1 «NP V NP»: subject=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: «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/pg27200/130/16/