Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen, The Old Street Lamp, sentence 96

The old man would read aloud about Africa, with its great forests and the wild elephants, while his wife would listen attentively, stealing a glance now and then at the clay elephants, which served as flower-pots.

Who acts: old man, wife, clay elephants · What happens: read, listen, steal, serve · To what, where: glance

This is a sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, The Old Street Lamp. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (old man, wife, clay elephants), 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	The	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	3 man	det
2	old	old	ADJ	Degree=Pos	3 man	amod
3	man	man	NOUN	Number=Sing	5 read	nsubj
4	would	would	AUX	VerbForm=Fin	5 read	aux
5	read	read	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	root	root
6	aloud	aloud	ADV	_	5 read	advmod
7	about	about	ADP	_	8 Africa	case
8	Africa	Africa	PROPN	Number=Sing	5 read	obl
9	,	,	PUNCT	_	13 forests	punct
10	with	with	ADP	_	13 forests	case
11	its	its	PRON	Case=Gen Gender=Neut Number=Sing Person=3 Poss=Yes PronType=Prs	13 forests	nmod:poss
12	great	great	ADJ	Degree=Pos	13 forests	amod
13	forests	forest	NOUN	Number=Plur	5 read	obl
14	and	and	CCONJ	_	17 elephants	cc
15	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	17 elephants	det
16	wild	wild	ADJ	Degree=Pos	17 elephants	amod
17	elephants	elephant	NOUN	Number=Plur	13 forests	conj
18	,	,	PUNCT	_	23 listen	punct
19	while	while	SCONJ	_	23 listen	mark
20	his	his	PRON	Case=Gen Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 Poss=Yes PronType=Prs	21 wife	nmod:poss
21	wife	wife	NOUN	Number=Sing	23 listen	nsubj
22	would	would	AUX	VerbForm=Fin	23 listen	aux
23	listen	listen	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	5 read	conj
24	attentively	attentively	ADV	_	23 listen	advmod
25	,	,	PUNCT	_	26 stealing	punct
26	stealing	steal	VERB	Tense=Pres VerbForm=Part	23 listen	advcl
27	a	a	DET	Definite=Ind PronType=Art	28 glance	det
28	glance	glance	NOUN	Number=Sing	26 stealing	obj
29	now	now	ADV	PronType=Dem	26 stealing	advmod
30	and	and	CCONJ	_	31 then	cc
31	then	then	ADV	PronType=Dem	29 now	conj
32	at	at	ADP	_	35 elephants	case
33	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	35 elephants	det
34	clay	clay	NOUN	Number=Sing	35 elephants	compound
35	elephants	elephant	NOUN	Number=Plur	26 stealing	obl
36	,	,	PUNCT	_	38 served	punct
37	which	which	PRON	PronType=Rel	38 served	nsubj
38	served	serve	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	35 elephants	acl:relcl
39	as	as	ADP	_	42 pots	case
40	flower	flower	NOUN	Number=Sing	42 pots	compound
41	-	-	PUNCT	_	40 flower	punct
42	pots	pot	NOUN	Number=Plur	38 served	obl
43	.	.	PUNCT	_	5 read	punct

Pragmatics

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	when	other	roles by
1	read	would	the old man			about Africa; with world's great forests and the wild elephants; aloud property	vn learn-14-2-1 «NP V PP.topic»: agent=Agent about africa=Topic
2	listen	would	man's wife			attentively property	vn peer-30.3 «NP V PP.theme»: agent=Agent
3	steal	gerund	man's wife not said here	a glance	now	at the clay elephants	vn appear-48.1.1 «PP.location V NP»: agent=Location glance=Theme
4	serve	past	the clay elephants			as flower pots	vn masquerade-29.6-2 «NP V PP.attribute»: agent=Agent as pot=Attribute

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/pg27200/133/96/