Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen, The Travelling Companion, part 1, sentence 77

Large speckled spiders, with silver crowns on their heads, were employed to spin suspension bridges and palaces from one hedge to another, and when the tiny drops fell upon them, they glittered in the moonlight like shining glass.

Who acts: tiny drops, drops · What happens: speckle, employ, spin, fall, glitter, shine · To what, where: Large speckled spiders, suspension bridges, one hedge, moonlight, glass

This is a sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, The Travelling Companion, part 1. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (tiny drops, drops), 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	Large	large	ADJ	Degree=Pos	3 spiders	amod
2	speckled	speckle	VERB	Tense=Past VerbForm=Part Voice=Pass	3 spiders	amod
3	spiders	spider	NOUN	Number=Plur	13 employed	nsubj:pass
4	,	,	PUNCT	_	7 crowns	punct
5	with	with	ADP	_	7 crowns	case
6	silver	silver	NOUN	Number=Sing	7 crowns	compound
7	crowns	crown	NOUN	Number=Plur	3 spiders	nmod
8	on	on	ADP	_	10 heads	case
9	their	their	PRON	Case=Gen Number=Plur Person=3 Poss=Yes PronType=Prs	10 heads	nmod:poss
10	heads	head	NOUN	Number=Plur	7 crowns	nmod
11	,	,	PUNCT	_	3 spiders	punct
12	were	be	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	13 employed	aux:pass
13	employed	employ	VERB	Tense=Past VerbForm=Part Voice=Pass	root	root
14	to	to	PART	_	15 spin	mark
15	spin	spin	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	13 employed	xcomp
16	suspension	suspension	NOUN	Number=Sing	17 bridges	compound
17	bridges	bridge	NOUN	Number=Plur	15 spin	obj
18	and	and	CCONJ	_	19 palaces	cc
19	palaces	palace	NOUN	Number=Plur	17 bridges	conj
20	from	from	ADP	_	22 hedge	case
21	one	one	NUM	NumForm=Word NumType=Card	22 hedge	nummod
22	hedge	hedge	NOUN	Number=Sing	15 spin	obl
23	to	to	ADP	_	24 another	case
24	another	another	DET	PronType=Ind	15 spin	obl
25	,	,	PUNCT	_	31 fell	punct
26	and	and	CCONJ	_	31 fell	cc
27	when	when	ADV	PronType=Int	31 fell	advmod
28	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	30 drops	det
29	tiny	tiny	ADJ	Degree=Pos	30 drops	amod
30	drops	drop	NOUN	Number=Plur	31 fell	nsubj
31	fell	fall	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	13 employed	parataxis
32	upon	upon	ADP	_	33 them	case
33	them	they	PRON	Case=Acc Number=Plur Person=3 PronType=Prs	31 fell	obl
34	,	,	PUNCT	_	36 glittered	punct
35	they	they	PRON	Case=Nom Number=Plur Person=3 PronType=Prs	36 glittered	nsubj
36	glittered	glitter	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	31 fell	conj
37	in	in	ADP	_	39 moonlight	case
38	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	39 moonlight	det
39	moonlight	moonlight	NOUN	Number=Sing	36 glittered	obl
40	like	like	SCONJ	_	41 shining	mark
41	shining	shine	VERB	Tense=Pres VerbForm=Part	36 glittered	advcl
42	glass	glass	NOUN	Number=Sing	41 shining	obj
43	.	.	PUNCT	_	13 employed	punct

Pragmatics

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	where	other	roles by
1	speckle	participle					vn fill-9.8-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Theme
2	employ	past · passive		Large speckled spiders with silver crowns on spiders's heads			vn hire-13.5.3 «NP V NP to be NP»: subject=Theme clause=Attribute
3	spin	to-infinitive		suspension bridges and palaces	one hedge	to another	vn roll-51.3.1 «NP.agent V NP.theme PP.source PP.trajectory PP.destination»: agent=Agent bridge=Theme from hedge=Source to another=Trajectory
4	fall	past	the tiny drops			upon spiders = spider	vn occur-48.3 «NP V PP»: agent=Theme upon they=Location
5	glitter	past	drops = drop		the moonlight		vn light_emission-43.1 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Theme in moonlight=Location
6	shine	gerund	drops = drop not said here	glass			vn light_emission-43.1 «NP V NP.theme»: agent=Agent glass=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.

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