Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen, Ole-luk-oie, the Dream-god, sentence 20
The pencil pulled and tugged at its string as if it were a little dog that wanted to help, but could not.
Who acts: pencil, little dog · What happens: pull, tug, be, want, help · To what, where: pencil, little dog
This is a sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, Ole-luk-oie, the Dream-god. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (pencil, little dog), 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 | 2 pencil | det |
| 2 | pencil | pencil | NOUN | Number=Sing | 3 pulled | nsubj:pass |
| 3 | pulled | pull | VERB | Tense=Past VerbForm=Part Voice=Pass | root | root |
| 4 | and | and | CCONJ | _ | 5 tugged | cc |
| 5 | tugged | tug | VERB | Tense=Past VerbForm=Part Voice=Pass | 3 pulled | conj |
| 6 | at | at | ADP | _ | 8 string | case |
| 7 | its | its | PRON | Case=Gen Gender=Neut Number=Sing Person=3 Poss=Yes PronType=Prs | 8 string | nmod:poss |
| 8 | string | string | NOUN | Number=Sing | 5 tugged | obl |
| 9 | as | as | SCONJ | _ | 15 dog | mark |
| 10 | if | if | SCONJ | _ | 15 dog | mark |
| 11 | it | it | PRON | Case=Nom Gender=Neut Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs | 15 dog | nsubj |
| 12 | were | be | AUX | Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | 15 dog | cop |
| 13 | a | a | DET | Definite=Ind PronType=Art | 15 dog | det |
| 14 | little | little | ADJ | Degree=Pos | 15 dog | amod |
| 15 | dog | dog | NOUN | Number=Sing | 5 tugged | obl:agent |
| 16 | that | that | PRON | PronType=Rel | 17 wanted | nsubj |
| 17 | wanted | want | VERB | Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | 15 dog | acl:relcl |
| 18 | to | to | PART | _ | 19 help | mark |
| 19 | help | help | VERB | VerbForm=Inf | 17 wanted | xcomp |
| 20 | , | , | PUNCT | _ | 22 could | punct |
| 21 | but | but | CCONJ | _ | 22 could | cc |
| 22 | could | could | AUX | VerbForm=Fin | 3 pulled | conj |
| 23 | not | not | PART | Polarity=Neg | 22 could | advmod |
| 24 | . | . | PUNCT | _ | 3 pulled | punct |
Pragmatics
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | pull | participle · passive | the pencil | vn push-12-1 «NP V NP»: subject=Theme | |||||
| 2 | tug | participle | at pencil's string | vn push-12-1 «NP V PP-Conative»: agent=Agent at string=Theme | |||||
| 3 | is a a condition, not said to happen | past | pencil | a little dog | tree rules | ||||
| 4 | want | past | a little dog | vn want-32.1-1-1 «NP V NP S_INF»: agent=Pivot clause=Theme | |||||
| 5 | help not said to happen | to-infinitive | a little dog not said here | vn help-72.1-1-1 «NP V PP.theme»: 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/pg27200/134/20/