Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen, The Shadow, sentence 211
Then she asked him a most difficult question, she herself could not have answered it, and the shadow made a most unaccountable grimace.
Who acts: Water, shadow · What happens: ask, not answer, make · To what, where: difficult question, prince, Water, question, unaccountable grimace
This is a sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, The Shadow. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Water, shadow), 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 | Then | then | ADV | PronType=Dem | 3 asked | advmod |
| 2 | she | she | PRON | Case=Nom Gender=Fem Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs | 3 asked | nsubj |
| 3 | asked | ask | VERB | Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | root | root |
| 4 | him | he | PRON | Case=Acc Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs | 3 asked | iobj |
| 5 | a | a | DET | Definite=Ind PronType=Art | 8 question | det |
| 6 | most | most | ADV | Degree=Sup | 7 difficult | advmod |
| 7 | difficult | difficult | ADJ | Degree=Pos | 8 question | amod |
| 8 | question | question | NOUN | Number=Sing | 3 asked | obj |
| 9 | , | , | PUNCT | _ | 15 answered | punct |
| 10 | she | she | PRON | Case=Nom Gender=Fem Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs | 15 answered | nsubj |
| 11 | herself | herself | PRON | Case=Acc Gender=Fem Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs Reflex=Yes | 15 answered | nsubj:pass |
| 12 | could | could | AUX | VerbForm=Fin | 15 answered | aux |
| 13 | not | not | PART | Polarity=Neg | 15 answered | advmod |
| 14 | have | have | AUX | VerbForm=Inf | 15 answered | aux |
| 15 | answered | answer | VERB | Tense=Past VerbForm=Part Voice=Pass | 3 asked | parataxis |
| 16 | it | it | PRON | Case=Acc Gender=Neut Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs | 15 answered | obj |
| 17 | , | , | PUNCT | _ | 21 made | punct |
| 18 | and | and | CCONJ | _ | 21 made | cc |
| 19 | the | the | DET | Definite=Def PronType=Art | 20 shadow | det |
| 20 | shadow | shadow | NOUN | Number=Sing | 21 made | nsubj |
| 21 | made | make | VERB | Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | 3 asked | conj |
| 22 | a | a | DET | Definite=Ind PronType=Art | 25 grimace | det |
| 23 | most | most | ADV | Degree=Sup | 24 unaccountable | advmod |
| 24 | unaccountable | unaccountable | ADJ | Degree=Pos | 25 grimace | amod |
| 25 | grimace | grimace | NOUN | Number=Sing | 21 made | obj |
| 26 | . | . | PUNCT | _ | 3 asked | punct |
Pragmatics
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | ask speech: ask | past | Water | a difficult question | prince | then | tree rules | ||
| 2 | not answer speech: assert | could · perfect · passive | Water | question | vn reciprocate-112-1 «NP V NP PP»: subject=Theme it=Eventuality | ||||
| 3 | make | past | the shadow | a unaccountable grimace | vn build-26.1-1 «NP.asset V NP»: agent=Asset grimace=Product |
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/pg27200/165/211/