Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen, The Watchman's Adventures, sentence 56

But this speed is like the movements of the sloth, or the crawling march of the snail, when compared to the swiftness with which light travels; light flies nineteen million times faster than the fleetest race-horse, and electricity is more rapid still.

Who acts: speed, light, electricity · What happens: be, compare, travel, fly

This is a sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, The Watchman's Adventures. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (speed, light, electricity), 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	But	but	CCONJ	_	7 movements	cc
2	this	this	DET	Number=Sing PronType=Dem	3 speed	det
3	speed	speed	NOUN	Number=Sing	7 movements	nsubj
4	is	be	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	7 movements	cop
5	like	like	ADP	_	7 movements	case
6	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	7 movements	det
7	movements	movement	NOUN	Number=Plur	root	root
8	of	of	ADP	_	10 sloth	case
9	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	10 sloth	det
10	sloth	sloth	NOUN	Number=Sing	7 movements	nmod
11	,	,	PUNCT	_	15 march	punct
12	or	or	CCONJ	_	15 march	cc
13	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	15 march	det
14	crawling	crawling	NOUN	Number=Sing	15 march	compound
15	march	march	NOUN	Number=Sing	10 sloth	appos
16	of	of	ADP	_	18 snail	case
17	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	18 snail	det
18	snail	snail	NOUN	Number=Sing	15 march	nmod
19	,	,	PUNCT	_	21 compared	punct
20	when	when	ADV	PronType=Int	21 compared	advmod
21	compared	compare	VERB	Tense=Past VerbForm=Part Voice=Pass	18 snail	acl
22	to	to	ADP	_	24 swiftness	case
23	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	24 swiftness	det
24	swiftness	swiftness	NOUN	Number=Sing	21 compared	obl
25	with	with	ADP	_	26 which	case
26	which	which	PRON	PronType=Rel	28 travels	obl
27	light	light	NOUN	Number=Sing	28 travels	nsubj
28	travels	travel	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	24 swiftness	acl:relcl
29	;	;	PUNCT	_	31 flies	punct
30	light	light	NOUN	Number=Sing	31 flies	nsubj
31	flies	fly	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	7 movements	parataxis
32	nineteen	nineteen	NUM	NumForm=Word NumType=Card	33 million	compound
33	million	million	NUM	NumForm=Word NumType=Card	34 times	nummod
34	times	time	NOUN	Number=Plur	35 faster	obl:unmarked
35	faster	fast	ADJ	Degree=Cmp	31 flies	advmod
36	than	than	ADP	_	41 horse	case
37	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	41 horse	det
38	fleetest	fleet	ADJ	Degree=Sup	41 horse	amod
39	race	race	NOUN	Number=Sing	41 horse	compound
40	-	-	PUNCT	_	39 race	punct
41	horse	horse	NOUN	Number=Sing	35 faster	obl
42	,	,	PUNCT	_	47 rapid	punct
43	and	and	CCONJ	_	47 rapid	cc
44	electricity	electricity	NOUN	Number=Sing	47 rapid	nsubj
45	is	be	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	47 rapid	cop
46	more	more	ADV	Degree=Cmp	47 rapid	advmod
47	rapid	rapid	ADJ	Degree=Pos	31 flies	conj
48	still	still	ADV	_	47 rapid	advmod
49	.	.	PUNCT	_	7 movements	punct

Pragmatics

#	verb	tense, mood	who	when	other	roles by
1	is	present	this speed		like the movements; of the sloth	tree rules
2	compare	participle			to the swiftness	vn amalgamate-22.2-2 «NP V ADVP-Middle»: agent=Patient
3	travel	present	light		with the swiftness	vn run-51.3.2-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme
4	fly	present	light			vn spatial_configuration-47.6-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme
5	is	present	electricity	still	rapid property	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/pg27200/42/56/