Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen, The Little Mermaid, part 1, sentence 53

The dolphins sported in the waves, and the great whales spouted water from their nostrils till it seemed as if a hundred fountains were playing in every direction.

Who acts: dolphins, hundred fountains · What happens: sport, spout, seem, play · To what, where: dolphins, direction

This is a sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, The Little Mermaid, part 1. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (dolphins, hundred fountains), 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	The	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	2 dolphins	det
2	dolphins	dolphin	NOUN	Number=Plur	19 seemed	nsubj
3	sported	sport	VERB	Tense=Past VerbForm=Part Voice=Pass	2 dolphins	acl
4	in	in	ADP	_	6 waves	case
5	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	6 waves	det
6	waves	wave	NOUN	Number=Plur	3 sported	obl:agent
7	,	,	PUNCT	_	19 seemed	punct
8	and	and	CCONJ	_	19 seemed	cc
9	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	11 whales	det
10	great	great	ADJ	Degree=Pos	11 whales	amod
11	whales	whale	NOUN	Number=Plur	19 seemed	nsubj
12	spouted	spout	VERB	Tense=Past VerbForm=Part Voice=Pass	13 water	amod
13	water	water	NOUN	Number=Sing	11 whales	conj
14	from	from	ADP	_	16 nostrils	case
15	their	their	PRON	Case=Gen Number=Plur Person=3 Poss=Yes PronType=Prs	16 nostrils	nmod:poss
16	nostrils	nostril	NOUN	Number=Plur	11 whales	nmod
17	till	till	ADP	_	18 it	case
18	it	it	PRON	Case=Acc Gender=Neut Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	16 nostrils	nmod
19	seemed	seem	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	root	root
20	as	as	SCONJ	_	26 playing	mark
21	if	if	SCONJ	_	26 playing	mark
22	a	a	DET	Definite=Ind PronType=Art	23 hundred	det
23	hundred	hundred	NUM	NumForm=Word NumType=Card	24 fountains	nummod
24	fountains	fountain	NOUN	Number=Plur	26 playing	nsubj
25	were	be	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	26 playing	aux
26	playing	play	VERB	VerbForm=Ger	19 seemed	xcomp
27	in	in	ADP	_	29 direction	case
28	every	every	DET	PronType=Tot	29 direction	det
29	direction	direction	NOUN	Number=Sing	26 playing	obl
30	.	.	PUNCT	_	19 seemed	punct

Pragmatics

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	where	roles by
1	sport	participle		the dolphins not said here		tree rules
2	spout	participle				vn substance_emission-43.4-1 «NP V»: agent=Source
3	seem	past	the dolphins			vn seem-109-1-1-1 «NP V S_INF»: agent=Theme clause=Attribute
4	play a condition, not said to happen	past · progressive	hundred fountains		every direction	vn performance-26.7-1 «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.

This page in Markdown → https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg27200/75/53/