Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen, The Toad, sentence 11

The Mother-Toad might have told this and that, if she had chosen, but she never answered when they asked her anything, and so they left off asking.

Who acts: Mother, Frogs · What happens: tell, choose, not answer, ask, leave off · To what, where: Mother, anything · Speech: someone speaks here

This is a sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, The Toad. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Mother, Frogs), 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 Mother	det
2	Mother	mother	NOUN	Number=Sing	7 told	nsubj:pass
3	-	-	PUNCT	_	4 Toad	punct
4	Toad	Toad	PROPN	Number=Sing	2 Mother	appos
5	might	might	AUX	VerbForm=Fin	7 told	aux
6	have	have	AUX	VerbForm=Inf	7 told	aux
7	told	tell	VERB	Tense=Past VerbForm=Part Voice=Pass	root	root
8	this	this	PRON	Number=Sing PronType=Dem	10 that	nsubj
9	and	and	CCONJ	_	10 that	cc
10	that	that	PRON	Number=Sing PronType=Dem	7 told	ccomp
11	,	,	PUNCT	_	15 chosen	punct
12	if	if	SCONJ	_	15 chosen	mark
13	she	she	PRON	Case=Nom Gender=Fem Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	15 chosen	nsubj
14	had	have	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	15 chosen	aux
15	chosen	choose	VERB	Tense=Past VerbForm=Part	7 told	parataxis
16	,	,	PUNCT	_	20 answered	punct
17	but	but	CCONJ	_	20 answered	cc
18	she	she	PRON	Case=Nom Gender=Fem Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	20 answered	nsubj
19	never	never	ADV	PronType=Neg	20 answered	advmod
20	answered	answer	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	7 told	parataxis
21	when	when	ADV	PronType=Int	23 asked	advmod
22	they	they	PRON	Case=Nom Number=Plur Person=3 PronType=Prs	23 asked	nsubj
23	asked	ask	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	20 answered	advcl
24	her	her	PRON	Case=Gen Gender=Fem Number=Sing Person=3 Poss=Yes PronType=Prs	25 anything	nmod:poss
25	anything	anything	PRON	Number=Sing PronType=Ind	23 asked	obj
26	,	,	PUNCT	_	30 left	punct
27	and	and	CCONJ	_	30 left	cc
28	so	so	ADV	_	30 left	advmod
29	they	they	PRON	Case=Nom Number=Plur Person=3 PronType=Prs	30 left	nsubj
30	left	leave	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	20 answered	conj
31	off	off	ADP	_	30 left	compound:prt
32	asking	ask	VERB	VerbForm=Ger	30 left	xcomp
33	.	.	PUNCT	_	7 told	punct

Pragmatics

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	roles by
1	tell speech: assert	might · perfect · passive		the Mother	vn transfer_mesg-37.1.1-1-1 «NP V NP.recipient»: subject=Recipient
2	choose a condition, not said to happen	past · perfect	Mother		vn get-13.5.1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent
3	not answer speech: assert	past	Mother		vn reciprocate-112-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent
4	ask speech: ask	past	Frogs = frog	anything	vn inquire-37.1.2 «NP V NP.recipient»: agent=Agent anything=Recipient
5	leave off	past	Frogs = frog		tree rules
6	ask speech: ask	gerund	Frogs = frog not said here		vn inquire-37.1.2 «NP V»: agent=Agent

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/pg27200/194/11/