Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen, The Shepherdess and the Sheep, sentence 15

He was an old Chinaman, who could nod his head, and used to pretend that he was the grandfather of the shepherdess, although he could not prove it.

Who acts: beard, old Chinaman · What happens: be, nod, use, pretend, not prove · To what, where: old Chinaman, head, grandfather, shepherdess

This is a sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, The Shepherdess and the Sheep. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (beard, old Chinaman), 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	He	he	PRON	Case=Nom Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	5 Chinaman	nsubj
2	was	be	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	5 Chinaman	cop
3	an	a	DET	Definite=Ind PronType=Art	5 Chinaman	det
4	old	old	ADJ	Degree=Pos	5 Chinaman	amod
5	Chinaman	Chinaman	PROPN	Number=Sing	root	root
6	,	,	PUNCT	_	9 nod	punct
7	who	who	PRON	PronType=Rel	9 nod	nsubj
8	could	could	AUX	VerbForm=Fin	9 nod	aux
9	nod	nod	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	5 Chinaman	parataxis
10	his	his	PRON	Case=Gen Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 Poss=Yes PronType=Prs	11 head	nmod:poss
11	head	head	NOUN	Number=Sing	9 nod	obj
12	,	,	PUNCT	_	14 used	punct
13	and	and	CCONJ	_	14 used	cc
14	used	use	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	9 nod	parataxis
15	to	to	PART	_	16 pretend	mark
16	pretend	pretend	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	14 used	xcomp
17	that	that	SCONJ	_	21 grandfather	mark
18	he	he	PRON	Case=Nom Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	21 grandfather	nsubj
19	was	be	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	21 grandfather	cop
20	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	21 grandfather	det
21	grandfather	grandfather	NOUN	Number=Sing	16 pretend	xcomp
22	of	of	ADP	_	24 shepherdess	case
23	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	24 shepherdess	det
24	shepherdess	shepherdess	NOUN	Number=Sing	21 grandfather	nmod
25	,	,	PUNCT	_	30 prove	punct
26	although	although	SCONJ	_	30 prove	mark
27	he	he	PRON	Case=Nom Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	30 prove	nsubj
28	could	could	AUX	VerbForm=Fin	30 prove	aux
29	not	not	PART	Polarity=Neg	30 prove	advmod
30	prove	prove	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	16 pretend	conj
31	it	it	PRON	Case=Acc Gender=Neut Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	30 prove	obj
32	.	.	PUNCT	_	5 Chinaman	punct

Pragmatics

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	other	roles by
1	is a	past	beard	a old Chinaman		tree rules
2	nod	could	a old Chinaman	beard's head		vn wink-40.3.1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent head=Patient
3	use	past				vn use-105.1 «NP V NP S_INF»: agent=Agent clause=Eventuality
4	pretend	to-infinitive				tree rules
5	is a	past	beard	the grandfather	of the shepherdess	tree rules
6	not prove	could	beard	shepherdess		vn deduce-97.2 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent it=Theme

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/pg27200/166/15/