Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen, The Will-o-the Wisp Is in the Town, Says the Moor Woman, sentence 186

"I told them that the safest and most convenient course was to give up the honor, and do nothing at all; but the little flames would not agree to this, and already fancied themselves clad in fiery yellow clothes, breathing flames from their throats.

Who acts: I, safest, little flames · What happens: tell, give up, do, not agree, fancy, clad · To what, where: Wisps, honor, nothing, all, fiery yellow clothes · 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 (I, safest, little flames), 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	"	"	PUNCT	_	3 told	punct
2	I	I	PRON	Case=Nom Number=Sing Person=1 PronType=Prs	3 told	nsubj
3	told	tell	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=1 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	root	root
4	them	they	PRON	Case=Acc Number=Plur Person=3 PronType=Prs	3 told	iobj
5	that	that	SCONJ	_	14 give	mark
6	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	7 safest	det
7	safest	safe	ADJ	Degree=Sup	14 give	nsubj
8	and	and	CCONJ	_	10 convenient	cc
9	most	most	ADV	Degree=Sup	10 convenient	advmod
10	convenient	convenient	ADJ	Degree=Pos	7 safest	conj
11	course	course	NOUN	Number=Sing	7 safest	fixed
12	was	be	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	14 give	aux
13	to	to	PART	_	14 give	mark
14	give	give	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	3 told	ccomp
15	up	up	ADP	_	14 give	compound:prt
16	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	17 honor	det
17	honor	honor	NOUN	Number=Sing	14 give	obj
18	,	,	PUNCT	_	20 do	punct
19	and	and	CCONJ	_	20 do	cc
20	do	do	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	3 told	parataxis
21	nothing	nothing	PRON	Number=Sing PronType=Neg	20 do	obj
22	at	at	ADP	_	23 all	case
23	all	all	DET	PronType=Tot	21 nothing	nmod
24	;	;	PUNCT	_	31 agree	punct
25	but	but	CCONJ	_	31 agree	cc
26	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	28 flames	det
27	little	little	ADJ	Degree=Pos	28 flames	amod
28	flames	flame	NOUN	Number=Plur	31 agree	nsubj
29	would	would	AUX	VerbForm=Fin	31 agree	aux
30	not	not	PART	Polarity=Neg	31 agree	advmod
31	agree	agree	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	3 told	conj
32	to	to	ADP	_	33 this	case
33	this	this	PRON	Number=Sing PronType=Dem	31 agree	obl
34	,	,	PUNCT	_	37 fancied	punct
35	and	and	CCONJ	_	37 fancied	cc
36	already	already	ADV	_	37 fancied	advmod
37	fancied	fancy	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=1 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	3 told	conj
38	themselves	themselves	PRON	Case=Acc Number=Plur Person=3 PronType=Prs Reflex=Yes	37 fancied	obj
39	clad	clad	VERB	Tense=Past VerbForm=Part Voice=Pass	37 fancied	xcomp
40	in	in	ADP	_	43 clothes	case
41	fiery	fiery	ADJ	Degree=Pos	43 clothes	amod
42	yellow	yellow	ADJ	Degree=Pos	43 clothes	amod
43	clothes	clothes	NOUN	Number=Ptan	39 clad	obl
44	,	,	PUNCT	_	46 flames	punct
45	breathing	breathing	NOUN	Number=Sing	46 flames	compound
46	flames	flame	NOUN	Number=Plur	43 clothes	conj
47	from	from	ADP	_	49 throats	case
48	their	their	PRON	Case=Gen Number=Plur Person=3 Poss=Yes PronType=Prs	49 throats	nmod:poss
49	throats	throat	NOUN	Number=Plur	46 flames	nmod
50	.	.	PUNCT	_	3 told	punct

Pragmatics

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	other	roles by
1	tell speech: assert in a quote	past	I		Wisps = wisp			vn transfer_mesg-37.1.1-1-1 «NP V NP S_INF»: agent=Agent they=Recipient clause=Topic
2	give up not said to happen, in a quote	past	the safest	the honor				vn resign-10.11-2 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent honor=Source
3	do in a quote	present		nothing		all		vn act-114-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent nothing=Eventuality
4	not agree speech: agree in a quote	would	the little flames				to this	vn correspond-36.1-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent
5	fancy in a quote	past	I not said here	Wisps = wisp				vn characterize-29.2 «NP V NP to be ADJ»: agent=Agent themselves=Theme clause=Attribute
6	clad in a quote	participle	I not said here			fiery yellow clothes and breathing flames from Wisps's throats		tree rules

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/pg27200/211/186/