Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen, Poultry Meg's Family, sentence 10

The brass plate had been found when they were digging the foundation; and the clerk has said it had no value except in being an old relic.

Who acts: word, plate · What happens: find, dig, say, have, be · To what, where: brass plate, foundation, clerk, value · Speech: someone speaks here

This is a sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, Poultry Meg's Family. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (word, plate), 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 plate	det
2	brass	brass	NOUN	Number=Sing	3 plate	compound
3	plate	plate	NOUN	Number=Sing	6 found	nsubj:pass
4	had	have	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	6 found	aux
5	been	be	AUX	Tense=Past VerbForm=Part	6 found	aux:pass
6	found	find	VERB	Tense=Past VerbForm=Part Voice=Pass	root	root
7	when	when	SCONJ	_	10 digging	mark
8	they	they	PRON	Case=Nom Number=Plur Person=3 PronType=Prs	10 digging	nsubj
9	were	be	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	10 digging	aux
10	digging	dig	VERB	Tense=Pres VerbForm=Part	6 found	advcl
11	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	12 foundation	det
12	foundation	foundation	NOUN	Number=Sing	10 digging	obj
13	;	;	PUNCT	_	18 said	punct
14	and	and	CCONJ	_	18 said	cc
15	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	16 clerk	det
16	clerk	clerk	NOUN	Number=Sing	18 said	nsubj:pass
17	has	have	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	18 said	aux
18	said	say	VERB	Tense=Past VerbForm=Part Voice=Pass	6 found	conj
19	it	it	PRON	Case=Nom Gender=Neut Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	20 had	nsubj
20	had	have	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	18 said	ccomp
21	no	no	DET	PronType=Neg	22 value	det
22	value	value	NOUN	Number=Sing	20 had	obj
23	except	except	ADP	_	28 relic	case
24	in	in	ADP	_	28 relic	case
25	being	be	AUX	Tense=Pres VerbForm=Part	28 relic	cop
26	an	a	DET	Definite=Ind PronType=Art	28 relic	det
27	old	old	ADJ	Degree=Pos	28 relic	amod
28	relic	relic	NOUN	Number=Sing	22 value	nmod
29	.	.	PUNCT	_	6 found	punct

Pragmatics

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	other	roles by
1	find	past · perfect · passive		the brass plate		vn discover-84 «NP V NP»: subject=Topic
2	dig	past · progressive	word	the foundation		vn poke-19-1-1-1 «NP V NP.theme»: agent=Agent foundation=Theme
3	say speech: assert	present · perfect · passive		the clerk		tree rules
4	have	past	plate	no value		vn birth-28.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent value=Patient
5	is	gerund			except a old relic	tree rules

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.

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