Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen, The Snowdrop, sentence 149
He tried to build a lofty storey himself, but it fell to pieces, and he fell with it and broke his neck.
Who acts: widow, storey · What happens: try, build, fall, break · To what, where: lofty storey, neck
This is a sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, The Snowdrop. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (widow, storey), 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 | 2 tried | nsubj |
| 2 | tried | try | VERB | Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | root | root |
| 3 | to | to | PART | _ | 4 build | mark |
| 4 | build | build | VERB | VerbForm=Inf | 2 tried | xcomp |
| 5 | a | a | DET | Definite=Ind PronType=Art | 7 storey | det |
| 6 | lofty | lofty | ADJ | Degree=Pos | 7 storey | amod |
| 7 | storey | storey | NOUN | Number=Sing | 4 build | obj |
| 8 | himself | himself | PRON | Case=Acc Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs Reflex=Yes | 4 build | obl:unmarked |
| 9 | , | , | PUNCT | _ | 12 fell | punct |
| 10 | but | but | CCONJ | _ | 12 fell | cc |
| 11 | it | it | PRON | Case=Nom Gender=Neut Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs | 12 fell | nsubj |
| 12 | fell | fall | VERB | Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | 2 tried | conj |
| 13 | to | to | ADP | _ | 14 pieces | case |
| 14 | pieces | piece | NOUN | Number=Plur | 12 fell | obl |
| 15 | , | , | PUNCT | _ | 18 fell | punct |
| 16 | and | and | CCONJ | _ | 18 fell | cc |
| 17 | he | he | PRON | Case=Nom Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs | 18 fell | nsubj |
| 18 | fell | fall | VERB | Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | 2 tried | parataxis |
| 19 | with | with | ADP | _ | 20 it | case |
| 20 | it | it | PRON | Case=Acc Gender=Neut Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs | 18 fell | obl |
| 21 | and | and | CCONJ | _ | 22 broke | cc |
| 22 | broke | break | VERB | Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | 18 fell | conj |
| 23 | his | his | PRON | Case=Gen Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 Poss=Yes PronType=Prs | 24 neck | nmod:poss |
| 24 | neck | neck | NOUN | Number=Sing | 22 broke | obj |
| 25 | . | . | PUNCT | _ | 2 tried | punct |
Pragmatics
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | try | past | widow | vn try-61.1 «NP V S_INF»: agent=Agent clause=Eventuality | |||||
| 2 | build not said to happen | to-infinitive | widow not said here | a lofty storey | widow obl:unmarked | vn build-26.1-1 «NP.asset V NP»: agent=Asset storey=Product | |||
| 3 | fall | past | storey | to pieces | vn acquiesce-95.1-1 «NP V PP.theme»: agent=Agent to piece=Theme | ||||
| 4 | fall | past | widow | with storey | vn occur-48.3 «NP V»: agent=Theme | ||||
| 5 | break | past | widow not said here | widow's neck | vn hurt-40.8.3-1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Experiencer neck=Patient |
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/pg27200/177/149/