Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen, A Story From the Sand-hills, part 6, sentence 20

The road had always been heavy, but now it was almost unfit for use, and when they at last arrived at the church, a great heap of sand lay piled up in front of them.

Who acts: road · What happens: be, arrive, pile up · To what, where: front

This is a sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, A Story From the Sand-hills, part 6. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (road), 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 road	det
2	road	road	NOUN	Number=Sing	6 heavy	nsubj
3	had	have	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	6 heavy	aux
4	always	always	ADV	PronType=Tot	6 heavy	advmod
5	been	be	AUX	Tense=Past VerbForm=Part	6 heavy	cop
6	heavy	heavy	ADJ	Degree=Pos	root	root
7	,	,	PUNCT	_	13 unfit	punct
8	but	but	CCONJ	_	13 unfit	cc
9	now	now	ADV	PronType=Dem	13 unfit	advmod
10	it	it	PRON	Case=Nom Gender=Neut Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	13 unfit	nsubj
11	was	be	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	13 unfit	cop
12	almost	almost	ADV	_	13 unfit	advmod
13	unfit	unfit	ADJ	Degree=Pos	6 heavy	conj
14	for	for	ADP	_	15 use	case
15	use	use	NOUN	Number=Sing	13 unfit	obl
16	,	,	PUNCT	_	33 piled	punct
17	and	and	CCONJ	_	33 piled	cc
18	when	when	ADV	PronType=Int	32 lay	advmod
19	they	they	PRON	Case=Nom Number=Plur Person=3 PronType=Prs	32 lay	nsubj
20	at	at	ADP	_	25 church	case
21	last	last	ADJ	Degree=Pos	25 church	amod
22	arrived	arrive	VERB	Tense=Past VerbForm=Part Voice=Pass	25 church	amod
23	at	at	ADP	_	25 church	case
24	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	25 church	det
25	church	church	NOUN	Number=Sing	19 they	nmod
26	,	,	PUNCT	_	29 heap	punct
27	a	a	DET	Definite=Ind PronType=Art	29 heap	det
28	great	great	ADJ	Degree=Pos	29 heap	amod
29	heap	heap	NOUN	Number=Sing	25 church	conj
30	of	of	ADP	_	31 sand	case
31	sand	sand	NOUN	Number=Sing	29 heap	nmod
32	lay	lay	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	33 piled	aux:pass
33	piled	pile	VERB	Tense=Past VerbForm=Part Voice=Pass	6 heavy	conj
34	up	up	ADP	_	33 piled	compound:prt
35	in	in	ADP	_	36 front	case
36	front	front	NOUN	Number=Sing	33 piled	obl
37	of	of	ADP	_	38 them	case
38	them	they	PRON	Case=Acc Number=Plur Person=3 PronType=Prs	36 front	nmod
39	.	.	PUNCT	_	6 heavy	punct

Pragmatics

#	verb	tense, mood	who	where	when	other	roles by
1	is	past · perfect	the road			always, heavy property	tree rules
2	is	past	road		now	for use; almost, unfit property	tree rules
3	arrive	participle					vn escape-51.1-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme
4	pile up	present · passive	the road not said here	front of storm			vn spray-9.7-1-1 «NP V PP.destination»: in front=Destination

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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