Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen, A Story From the Sand-hills, part 1, sentence 51
At last the travellers began to wish for wind, for a favourable breeze; but their wish was useless--not a breath of air stirred, or if it did arise it was contrary.
Who acts: travellers, wish, breath · What happens: begin, wish, be, stir, arise · To what, where: last
This is a sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, A Story From the Sand-hills, part 1. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (travellers, wish, breath), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.
Checked tree. This sentence is in the tales treebank of Mova corpus 0.3 (gutenberg:pg27200:10693): parsed by Mova, then checked and patched by a teacher model under UD validation gates — Mova annot: Rust (en) → Claude Opus (medium) patches; gates UD 2.18.
The tree
The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)
| # | word | lemma | UPOS | features | head | relation |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | At | at | ADP | _ | 2 last | case |
| 2 | last | last | ADJ | Degree=Pos | 5 began | obl |
| 3 | the | the | DET | Definite=Def PronType=Art | 4 travellers | det |
| 4 | travellers | traveller | NOUN | Number=Plur | 5 began | nsubj |
| 5 | began | begin | VERB | Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | root | root |
| 6 | to | to | PART | _ | 7 wish | mark |
| 7 | wish | wish | VERB | VerbForm=Inf | 5 began | xcomp |
| 8 | for | for | ADP | _ | 9 wind | case |
| 9 | wind | wind | NOUN | Number=Sing | 7 wish | obl |
| 10 | , | , | PUNCT | _ | 14 breeze | punct |
| 11 | for | for | ADP | _ | 14 breeze | case |
| 12 | a | a | DET | Definite=Ind PronType=Art | 14 breeze | det |
| 13 | favourable | favourable | ADJ | Degree=Pos | 14 breeze | amod |
| 14 | breeze | breeze | NOUN | Number=Sing | 9 wind | conj |
| 15 | ; | ; | PUNCT | _ | 20 useless | punct |
| 16 | but | but | CCONJ | _ | 20 useless | cc |
| 17 | their | their | PRON | Case=Gen Number=Plur Person=3 Poss=Yes PronType=Prs | 18 wish | nmod:poss |
| 18 | wish | wish | NOUN | Number=Sing | 20 useless | nsubj |
| 19 | was | be | AUX | Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | 20 useless | cop |
| 20 | useless | useless | ADJ | Degree=Pos | 5 began | conj |
| 21 | -- | -- | PUNCT | _ | 27 stirred | punct |
| 22 | not | not | PART | Polarity=Neg | 24 breath | advmod |
| 23 | a | a | DET | Definite=Ind PronType=Art | 24 breath | det |
| 24 | breath | breath | NOUN | Number=Sing | 27 stirred | nsubj |
| 25 | of | of | ADP | _ | 26 air | case |
| 26 | air | air | NOUN | Number=Sing | 24 breath | nmod |
| 27 | stirred | stir | VERB | Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | 20 useless | parataxis |
| 28 | , | , | PUNCT | _ | 36 contrary | punct |
| 29 | or | or | CCONJ | _ | 36 contrary | cc |
| 30 | if | if | SCONJ | _ | 33 arise | mark |
| 31 | it | it | PRON | Case=Nom Gender=Neut Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs | 33 arise | nsubj |
| 32 | did | do | AUX | Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | 33 arise | aux |
| 33 | arise | arise | VERB | VerbForm=Inf | 36 contrary | advcl |
| 34 | it | it | PRON | Case=Nom Gender=Neut Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs | 36 contrary | nsubj |
| 35 | was | be | AUX | Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | 36 contrary | cop |
| 36 | contrary | contrary | ADJ | Degree=Pos | 27 stirred | conj |
| 37 | . | . | PUNCT | _ | 5 began | punct |
Pragmatics
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | begin | past | the travellers | last | vn begin-55.1-1-1 «NP V S_INF»: agent=Agent clause=Eventuality | ||||
| 2 | wish | to-infinitive | the travellers not said here | for wind and a favourable breeze | vn long-32.2 «NP V PP.theme»: agent=Pivot for wind=Theme | ||||
| 3 | is | past | travellers's wish | useless property | tree rules | ||||
| 4 | stir | past | a breath of air | vn amuse-31.1 «NP V ADV-Middle»: agent=Experiencer | |||||
| 5 | arise a condition, not said to happen | past · do-support | breath | vn appear-48.1.1 «NP V»: agent=Theme | |||||
| 6 | is | past | breath | contrary property | tree rules | ||||
| 7 | wish | travellers = traveller | nom wish «feeling intransitive»: poss=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: the tales treebank of Mova corpus 0.3, Apache-2.0 OR MIT. Frames: Mova's frames reader (prag), the chapter read in order.
This page in Markdown → https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg27200/158/51/