Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen, The Porter's Son, part 2, sentence 38
It was useful to George, and did not seem long at all, except when he happened to be thinking of his home.
Who acts: hand, George · What happens: be, not seem, happen, think · To what, where: George
This is a sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, The Porter's Son, part 2. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (hand, George), 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 | It | it | PRON | Case=Nom Gender=Neut Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs | 3 useful | nsubj |
| 2 | was | be | AUX | Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | 3 useful | cop |
| 3 | useful | useful | ADJ | Degree=Pos | root | root |
| 4 | to | to | ADP | _ | 5 George | case |
| 5 | George | George | PROPN | Number=Sing | 3 useful | obl |
| 6 | , | , | PUNCT | _ | 10 seem | punct |
| 7 | and | and | CCONJ | _ | 10 seem | cc |
| 8 | did | do | AUX | Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=1 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | 10 seem | aux |
| 9 | not | not | PART | Polarity=Neg | 10 seem | advmod |
| 10 | seem | seem | VERB | Mood=Imp VerbForm=Fin | 3 useful | parataxis |
| 11 | long | long | ADJ | Degree=Pos | 10 seem | xcomp |
| 12 | at | at | ADP | _ | 13 all | case |
| 13 | all | all | DET | PronType=Tot | 11 long | obl |
| 14 | , | , | PUNCT | _ | 18 happened | punct |
| 15 | except | except | ADP | _ | 18 happened | mark |
| 16 | when | when | ADV | PronType=Int | 18 happened | advmod |
| 17 | he | he | PRON | Case=Nom Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs | 18 happened | nsubj |
| 18 | happened | happen | VERB | Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | 10 seem | parataxis |
| 19 | to | to | PART | _ | 21 thinking | mark |
| 20 | be | be | AUX | VerbForm=Inf | 21 thinking | aux |
| 21 | thinking | think | VERB | Tense=Pres VerbForm=Part | 18 happened | advcl |
| 22 | of | of | ADP | _ | 24 home | case |
| 23 | his | his | PRON | Case=Gen Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 Poss=Yes PronType=Prs | 24 home | nmod:poss |
| 24 | home | home | NOUN | Number=Sing | 21 thinking | obl |
| 25 | . | . | PUNCT | _ | 3 useful | punct |
Pragmatics
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | is | past | hand | George | useful property | tree rules | |||
| 2 | not seem | past · do-support | long property | vn seem-109-1-1-1 «NP V S_INF»: agent=Theme | |||||
| 3 | happen | past | George | vn occur-48.3-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme | |||||
| 4 | think speech: other | to-infinitive · progressive | George not said here | of George's home | vn focus-87.1-1 «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/pg27200/147/38/