Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen, The Will-o-the Wisp Is in the Town, Says the Moor Woman, sentence 15

She knew so well how to tell about the oldest times, long before the princesses spun with the golden spindles, and the dragons lay outside the castles, guarding them.

Who acts: charming, dragons · What happens: know, tell, spin, lay, guard · To what, where: princesses, castles, dragons · Speech: someone speaks here

This is a sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, The Will-o-the Wisp Is in the Town, Says the Moor Woman. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (charming, dragons), 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	She	she	PRON	Case=Nom Gender=Fem Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	2 knew	nsubj
2	knew	know	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	root	root
3	so	so	ADV	_	4 well	advmod
4	well	well	ADV	Degree=Pos	2 knew	advmod
5	how	how	ADV	PronType=Int	7 tell	advmod
6	to	to	PART	_	7 tell	mark
7	tell	tell	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	2 knew	ccomp
8	about	about	ADP	_	11 times	case
9	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	11 times	det
10	oldest	old	ADJ	Degree=Sup	11 times	amod
11	times	time	NOUN	Number=Plur	7 tell	obl
12	,	,	PUNCT	_	13 long	punct
13	long	long	ADV	Degree=Pos	7 tell	advmod
14	before	before	ADP	_	16 princesses	case
15	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	16 princesses	det
16	princesses	princess	NOUN	Number=Plur	13 long	obl
17	spun	spin	VERB	Tense=Past VerbForm=Part Voice=Pass	16 princesses	acl
18	with	with	ADP	_	21 spindles	case
19	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	21 spindles	det
20	golden	golden	ADJ	Degree=Pos	21 spindles	amod
21	spindles	spindle	NOUN	Number=Plur	17 spun	obl
22	,	,	PUNCT	_	26 lay	punct
23	and	and	CCONJ	_	26 lay	cc
24	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	25 dragons	det
25	dragons	dragon	NOUN	Number=Plur	26 lay	nsubj
26	lay	lay	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	2 knew	parataxis
27	outside	outside	ADP	_	29 castles	case
28	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	29 castles	det
29	castles	castle	NOUN	Number=Plur	26 lay	obl
30	,	,	PUNCT	_	31 guarding	punct
31	guarding	guard	VERB	Tense=Pres VerbForm=Part	26 lay	advcl
32	them	they	PRON	Case=Acc Number=Plur Person=3 PronType=Prs	31 guarding	obj
33	.	.	PUNCT	_	2 knew	punct

Pragmatics

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	know	past	charming				well property	vn comprehend-87.2-1-1-1 «NP V how S_INF»: agent=Experiencer clause=Stimulus
2	tell speech: assert	to-infinitive				time	long property	vn transfer_mesg-37.1.1-1-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent
3	spin	participle		the princesses not said here			with the golden spindles	vn roll-51.3.1 «NP.theme V»: agent=Theme
4	lay	present	the dragons		the castles			vn put_spatial-9.2 «NP V NP PP.destination»: agent=Agent outside castle=Destination
5	guard	gerund	the dragons not said here	dragons = dragon				vn defend-72.3 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent they=Beneficiary

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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