Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen, The Old Street Lamp, sentence 99

"What is the use of all my capabilities," sighed the old lamp, "when I cannot obtain any wax lights; they have only oil and tallow here, and these will not do."

Who acts: use, Africa, capabilities, these · What happens: be, sigh, not obtain, have, tallow, not do · To what, where: use, old lamp, wax lights, oil · Speech: someone speaks here

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 (use, Africa, capabilities, these), 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	"	"	PUNCT	_	5 use	punct
2	What	what	PRON	PronType=Int	5 use	nsubj
3	is	be	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	5 use	cop
4	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	5 use	det
5	use	use	NOUN	Number=Sing	12 sighed	nsubj
6	of	of	ADP	_	9 capabilities	case
7	all	all	DET	PronType=Tot	9 capabilities	det:predet
8	my	my	PRON	Case=Gen Number=Sing Person=1 Poss=Yes PronType=Prs	9 capabilities	nmod:poss
9	capabilities	capability	NOUN	Number=Plur	5 use	nmod
10	,	,	PUNCT	_	5 use	punct
11	"	"	PUNCT	_	5 use	punct
12	sighed	sigh	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	root	root
13	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	15 lamp	det
14	old	old	ADJ	Degree=Pos	15 lamp	amod
15	lamp	lamp	NOUN	Number=Sing	12 sighed	obj
16	,	,	PUNCT	_	22 obtain	punct
17	"	"	PUNCT	_	22 obtain	punct
18	when	when	SCONJ	_	22 obtain	mark
19	I	I	PRON	Case=Nom Number=Sing Person=1 PronType=Prs	22 obtain	nsubj
20	can	can	AUX	VerbForm=Fin	22 obtain	aux
21	not	not	PART	Polarity=Neg	22 obtain	advmod
22	obtain	obtain	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	12 sighed	conj
23	any	any	DET	PronType=Ind	25 lights	det
24	wax	wax	NOUN	Number=Sing	25 lights	compound
25	lights	light	NOUN	Number=Plur	22 obtain	obj
26	;	;	PUNCT	_	28 have	punct
27	they	they	PRON	Case=Nom Number=Plur Person=3 PronType=Prs	28 have	nsubj
28	have	have	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	12 sighed	parataxis
29	only	only	ADV	_	30 oil	advmod
30	oil	oil	NOUN	Number=Sing	28 have	obj
31	and	and	CCONJ	_	32 tallow	cc
32	tallow	tallow	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	28 have	conj
33	here	here	ADV	PronType=Dem	32 tallow	advmod
34	,	,	PUNCT	_	39 do	punct
35	and	and	CCONJ	_	39 do	cc
36	these	this	PRON	Number=Plur PronType=Dem	39 do	nsubj
37	will	will	AUX	VerbForm=Fin	39 do	aux
38	not	not	PART	Polarity=Neg	39 do	advmod
39	do	do	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	12 sighed	parataxis
40	.	.	PUNCT	_	39 do	punct
41	"	"	PUNCT	_	39 do	punct

Pragmatics

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	where	other	roles by
1	is a in a quote	present		the use		of my capabilities	tree rules
2	sigh	past	the use	the old lamp			tree rules
3	not obtain in a quote	can	Africa	any wax lights			vn obtain-13.5.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent light=Theme
4	have in a quote	present	capabilities = capability	oil			vn birth-28.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent oil=Patient
5	tallow in a quote	present	capabilities = capability not said here		here		tree rules
6	not do in a quote	future	these				vn act-114-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent

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/pg27200/133/99/