Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen, The Watchman's Adventures, sentence 86

We might imagine it to be no jesting matter if the soul of the man should chance to return to him, for most probably it would seek for the body in East Street without being able to find it.

Who acts: We, soul, notice · What happens: imagine, be, chance, return, seek, find · To what, where: notice, jesting matter, man

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 (We, soul, notice), 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	We	we	PRON	Case=Nom Number=Plur Person=1 PronType=Prs	3 imagine	nsubj
2	might	might	AUX	VerbForm=Fin	3 imagine	aux
3	imagine	imagine	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	root	root
4	it	it	PRON	Case=Acc Gender=Neut Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	3 imagine	obj
5	to	to	PART	_	9 matter	mark
6	be	be	AUX	VerbForm=Inf	9 matter	cop
7	no	no	DET	PronType=Neg	9 matter	det
8	jesting	jesting	NOUN	Number=Sing	9 matter	compound
9	matter	matter	NOUN	Number=Sing	3 imagine	xcomp
10	if	if	SCONJ	_	17 chance	mark
11	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	12 soul	det
12	soul	soul	NOUN	Number=Sing	17 chance	nsubj
13	of	of	ADP	_	15 man	case
14	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	15 man	det
15	man	man	NOUN	Number=Sing	12 soul	nmod
16	should	should	AUX	VerbForm=Fin	17 chance	aux
17	chance	chance	NOUN	Number=Sing	9 matter	advcl
18	to	to	PART	_	19 return	mark
19	return	return	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	17 chance	acl
20	to	to	ADP	_	21 him	case
21	him	he	PRON	Case=Acc Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	19 return	obl
22	,	,	PUNCT	_	28 seek	punct
23	for	for	ADP	_	24 most	case
24	most	most	ADJ	Degree=Sup	28 seek	obl
25	probably	probably	ADV	_	28 seek	advmod
26	it	it	PRON	Case=Nom Gender=Neut Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	28 seek	nsubj
27	would	would	AUX	VerbForm=Fin	28 seek	aux
28	seek	seek	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	19 return	conj
29	for	for	ADP	_	31 body	case
30	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	31 body	det
31	body	body	NOUN	Number=Sing	28 seek	obl
32	in	in	ADP	_	34 Street	case
33	East	East	PROPN	Number=Sing	34 Street	compound
34	Street	Street	PROPN	Number=Sing	31 body	nmod
35	without	without	SCONJ	_	37 able	mark
36	being	be	AUX	Tense=Pres VerbForm=Part	37 able	cop
37	able	able	ADJ	Degree=Pos	28 seek	advcl
38	to	to	PART	_	39 find	mark
39	find	find	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	37 able	xcomp
40	it	it	PRON	Case=Acc Gender=Neut Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	39 find	obj
41	.	.	PUNCT	_	3 imagine	punct

Pragmatics

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	other	roles by
1	imagine	might	We	notice			vn wish-62 «NP V NP»: agent=Pivot it=Theme
2	is a	to-infinitive	We not said here	no jesting matter			tree rules
3	chance a condition, not said to happen	should	the soul of the man				tree rules
4	return	to-infinitive	We not said here		man		vn convert-26.6.2-1 «NP V S_ING»: agent=Patient to he=Result
5	seek	would	notice			for most; for the body in East Street; probably property	vn hunt-35.1 «NP V PP.theme PP.location»: agent=Agent for most=Theme
6	is	gerund	notice not said here			able property	tree rules
7	find	to-infinitive	notice not said here	notice			vn discover-84 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent it=Topic

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/pg27200/42/86/