Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen, The Clerk's Transformation, sentence 90

Then he flew down into the grass, turned his head about in every direction, and tapped his beak on the bending blades of grass, which, in proportion to his size, seemed to him as long as the palm-leaves in northern Africa.

Who acts: comedy, grass · What happens: fly down, turn, tap, seem · To what, where: grass, head, beak, comedy

This is a sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, The Clerk's Transformation. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (comedy, grass), 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	Then	then	ADV	PronType=Dem	3 flew	advmod
2	he	he	PRON	Case=Nom Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	3 flew	nsubj
3	flew	fly	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	root	root
4	down	down	ADV	_	3 flew	advmod
5	into	into	ADP	_	7 grass	case
6	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	7 grass	det
7	grass	grass	NOUN	Number=Sing	3 flew	obl
8	,	,	PUNCT	_	9 turned	punct
9	turned	turn	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	3 flew	conj
10	his	his	PRON	Case=Gen Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 Poss=Yes PronType=Prs	11 head	nmod:poss
11	head	head	NOUN	Number=Sing	9 turned	obj
12	about	about	ADP	_	15 direction	case
13	in	in	ADP	_	15 direction	case
14	every	every	DET	PronType=Tot	15 direction	det
15	direction	direction	NOUN	Number=Sing	9 turned	obl
16	,	,	PUNCT	_	18 tapped	punct
17	and	and	CCONJ	_	18 tapped	cc
18	tapped	tap	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	3 flew	conj
19	his	his	PRON	Case=Gen Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 Poss=Yes PronType=Prs	20 beak	nmod:poss
20	beak	beak	NOUN	Number=Sing	18 tapped	obj
21	on	on	ADP	_	24 blades	case
22	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	24 blades	det
23	bending	bending	NOUN	Number=Sing	24 blades	compound
24	blades	blade	NOUN	Number=Plur	18 tapped	obl
25	of	of	ADP	_	26 grass	case
26	grass	grass	NOUN	Number=Sing	24 blades	nmod
27	,	,	PUNCT	_	36 seemed	punct
28	which	which	PRON	PronType=Rel	36 seemed	nsubj
29	,	,	PUNCT	_	28 which	punct
30	in	in	ADP	_	31 proportion	case
31	proportion	proportion	NOUN	Number=Sing	36 seemed	obl
32	to	to	ADP	_	34 size	case
33	his	his	PRON	Case=Gen Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 Poss=Yes PronType=Prs	34 size	nmod:poss
34	size	size	NOUN	Number=Sing	31 proportion	nmod
35	,	,	PUNCT	_	31 proportion	punct
36	seemed	seem	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	26 grass	acl:relcl
37	to	to	ADP	_	38 him	case
38	him	he	PRON	Case=Acc Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	36 seemed	obl
39	as	as	ADV	_	40 long	advmod
40	long	long	ADV	Degree=Pos	36 seemed	advmod
41	as	as	ADP	_	45 leaves	case
42	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	45 leaves	det
43	palm	palm	NOUN	Number=Sing	45 leaves	compound
44	-	-	PUNCT	_	43 palm	punct
45	leaves	leaf	NOUN	Number=Plur	40 long	obl
46	in	in	ADP	_	48 Africa	case
47	northern	northern	ADJ	Degree=Pos	48 Africa	amod
48	Africa	Africa	PROPN	Number=Sing	45 leaves	nmod
49	.	.	PUNCT	_	3 flew	punct

Pragmatics

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	when	other	roles by
1	fly down	past	comedy			then	into the grass result; down property	vn run-51.3.2-2-1 «NP V PP.result»: agent=Theme into grass=Result
2	turn	past	comedy not said here	comedy's head			about every direction	vn roll-51.3.1 «NP V NP.theme»: agent=Agent head=Theme
3	tap	past	comedy not said here	comedy's beak			on the bending blades of grass	vn hit-18.1-1 «NP V NP PP»: agent=Agent beak=Instrument on blade=Patient
4	seem	past	grass		comedy		in proportion to comedy's size; long property	vn seem-109-1-1-1 «NP V PP.attribute»: agent=Theme in proportion=Attribute

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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