Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen, The Little Mermaid, part 1, sentence 64
But the sailors could not understand the song, they took it for the howling of the storm.
Who acts: sailors, storm · What happens: not understand, take, howl · To what, where: song
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 (sailors, storm), 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 | _ | 6 understand | cc |
| 2 | the | the | DET | Definite=Def PronType=Art | 3 sailors | det |
| 3 | sailors | sailor | NOUN | Number=Plur | 6 understand | nsubj |
| 4 | could | could | AUX | VerbForm=Fin | 6 understand | aux |
| 5 | not | not | PART | Polarity=Neg | 6 understand | advmod |
| 6 | understand | understand | VERB | VerbForm=Inf | root | root |
| 7 | the | the | DET | Definite=Def PronType=Art | 8 song | det |
| 8 | song | song | NOUN | Number=Sing | 6 understand | obj |
| 9 | , | , | PUNCT | _ | 11 took | punct |
| 10 | they | they | PRON | Case=Nom Number=Plur Person=3 PronType=Prs | 11 took | nsubj |
| 11 | took | take | VERB | Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | 6 understand | conj |
| 12 | it | it | PRON | Case=Acc Gender=Neut Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs | 11 took | obj |
| 13 | for | for | ADP | _ | 15 howling | case |
| 14 | the | the | DET | Definite=Def PronType=Art | 15 howling | det |
| 15 | howling | howling | NOUN | Number=Sing | 11 took | obl |
| 16 | of | of | ADP | _ | 18 storm | case |
| 17 | the | the | DET | Definite=Def PronType=Art | 18 storm | det |
| 18 | storm | storm | NOUN | Number=Sing | 15 howling | nmod |
| 19 | . | . | PUNCT | _ | 6 understand | punct |
Pragmatics
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | not understand | could | the sailors | the song | vn comprehend-87.2-1-1-1 «NP V NP PP.attribute»: agent=Experiencer song=Stimulus | ||||
| 2 | take | past | sailors = sailor | song | for the howling of the storm | vn get-13.5.1 «NP V NP PP.beneficiary»: agent=Agent it=Theme for howling=Beneficiary | |||
| 3 | howl | the storm | nom howling «communication intransitive»: of=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/pg27200/75/64/