Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen, Beauty of Form and Beauty of Mind, sentence 9

She seemed, so far as Mr. Alfred was concerned, to be like a piece of fresh blotting-paper that absorbed all he said and asked for more.

Who acts: widow, Alfred, fresh blotting paper · What happens: seem, be, absorb, say, ask · To what, where: all · Speech: someone speaks here

This is a sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, Beauty of Form and Beauty of Mind. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (widow, Alfred, fresh blotting paper), 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 seemed	nsubj
2	seemed	seem	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	root	root
3	,	,	PUNCT	_	5 far	punct
4	so	so	ADV	_	5 far	advmod
5	far	far	ADV	Degree=Pos	2 seemed	advmod
6	as	as	SCONJ	_	10 concerned	mark
7	Mr.	Mr.	PROPN	Number=Sing	8 Alfred	nmod:desc
8	Alfred	Alfred	PROPN	Number=Sing	10 concerned	nsubj
9	was	be	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	10 concerned	cop
10	concerned	concerned	ADJ	Degree=Pos	5 far	advcl
11	,	,	PUNCT	_	16 piece	punct
12	to	to	PART	_	16 piece	mark
13	be	be	AUX	VerbForm=Inf	16 piece	cop
14	like	like	ADP	_	16 piece	case
15	a	a	DET	Definite=Ind PronType=Art	16 piece	det
16	piece	piece	NOUN	Number=Sing	2 seemed	obl
17	of	of	ADP	_	21 paper	case
18	fresh	fresh	ADJ	Degree=Pos	21 paper	amod
19	blotting	blotting	NOUN	Number=Sing	21 paper	compound
20	-	-	PUNCT	_	19 blotting	punct
21	paper	paper	NOUN	Number=Sing	16 piece	nmod
22	that	that	PRON	PronType=Rel	23 absorbed	nsubj
23	absorbed	absorb	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	21 paper	acl:relcl
24	all	all	DET	PronType=Tot	23 absorbed	obj
25	he	he	PRON	Case=Nom Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	26 said	nsubj
26	said	say	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	24 all	acl:relcl
27	and	and	CCONJ	_	28 asked	cc
28	asked	ask	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	26 said	conj
29	for	for	ADP	_	30 more	case
30	more	more	ADJ	Degree=Cmp	28 asked	obl
31	.	.	PUNCT	_	2 seemed	punct

Pragmatics

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	other	roles by
1	seem	past	widow		far property	vn seem-109-1-1-1 «NP V S_INF»: agent=Theme
2	is	past	Alfred Mr.		concerned property	tree rules
3	is	to-infinitive			like a piece; of fresh blotting paper	tree rules
4	absorb	past	fresh blotting paper	all		vn absorb-39.8 «NP V NP»: agent=Goal all=Theme
5	say speech: assert	past	Alfred			vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent
6	ask speech: ask	past	Alfred not said here		for more	vn inquire-37.1.2 «NP V»: agent=Agent

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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