Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen, What the Second Mouse Had to Tell, sentence 57

A great man has said and written that there are novels whose sole and only use appeared to be that they might relieve mankind of overflowing tears--a kind of sponge, in fact, for sucking up feelings and emotions.

Who acts: great man, novels, sole · What happens: say, write, be, use, appear, overflow · To what, where: feelings · Speech: someone speaks here

This is a sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, What the Second Mouse Had to Tell. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (great man, novels, sole), 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	A	a	DET	Definite=Ind PronType=Art	3 man	det
2	great	great	ADJ	Degree=Pos	3 man	amod
3	man	man	NOUN	Number=Sing	5 said	nsubj
4	has	have	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	5 said	aux
5	said	say	VERB	Tense=Past VerbForm=Part	root	root
6	and	and	CCONJ	_	7 written	cc
7	written	write	VERB	Tense=Past VerbForm=Part	5 said	conj
8	that	that	SCONJ	_	10 are	mark
9	there	there	PRON	PronType=Dem	10 are	expl
10	are	be	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	5 said	ccomp
11	novels	novel	NOUN	Number=Plur	10 are	nsubj
12	whose	whose	PRON	Poss=Yes PronType=Rel	13 sole	nmod:poss
13	sole	sole	NOUN	Number=Sing	17 appeared	nsubj
14	and	and	CCONJ	_	16 use	cc
15	only	only	ADV	_	16 use	advmod
16	use	use	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	13 sole	acl:relcl
17	appeared	appear	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	11 novels	acl:relcl
18	to	to	PART	_	23 relieve	mark
19	be	be	AUX	VerbForm=Inf	23 relieve	cop
20	that	that	SCONJ	_	23 relieve	mark
21	they	they	PRON	Case=Nom Number=Plur Person=3 PronType=Prs	23 relieve	nsubj
22	might	might	AUX	VerbForm=Fin	23 relieve	aux
23	relieve	relieve	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	17 appeared	xcomp
24	mankind	mankind	NOUN	Number=Sing	23 relieve	obj
25	of	of	ADP	_	27 tears	case
26	overflowing	overflow	VERB	VerbForm=Ger	27 tears	amod
27	tears	tear	NOUN	Number=Plur	24 mankind	nmod
28	--	--	PUNCT	_	30 kind	punct
29	a	a	DET	Definite=Ind PronType=Art	30 kind	det
30	kind	kind	NOUN	Number=Sing	24 mankind	appos
31	of	of	ADP	_	32 sponge	case
32	sponge	sponge	NOUN	Number=Sing	30 kind	nmod
33	,	,	PUNCT	_	35 fact	punct
34	in	in	ADP	_	35 fact	case
35	fact	fact	NOUN	Number=Sing	23 relieve	conj
36	,	,	PUNCT	_	38 sucking	punct
37	for	for	SCONJ	_	38 sucking	mark
38	sucking	suck	VERB	Tense=Pres VerbForm=Part	23 relieve	advcl
39	up	up	ADP	_	38 sucking	compound:prt
40	feelings	feeling	NOUN	Number=Plur	38 sucking	obj
41	and	and	CCONJ	_	42 emotions	cc
42	emotions	emotion	NOUN	Number=Plur	40 feelings	conj
43	.	.	PUNCT	_	5 said	punct

Pragmatics

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	where	other	roles by
1	say speech: assert	present · perfect	a great man				vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent clause=Topic
2	write	participle	a great man not said here				vn scribble-25.2-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent
3	does	present	novels		there		vn exist-47.1 «NP V»: agent=Theme
4	use	present	sole not said here				vn eat-39.1 «NP V»: agent=Agent
5	appear	past	sole				vn seem-109-1-1-1 «NP V S_INF»: agent=Theme clause=Attribute
6	is	might · to-infinitive	novels = novel			relieve property	tree rules
7	overflow	gerund					tree rules
8	suck up	gerund	novels = novel not said here	feelings and emotions			vn wipe_manner-10.4.1-1 «NP V NP.source»: agent=Agent feeling=Source

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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