Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen, The Little Mermaid, part 3, sentence 34

If the polypi should seize hold of you as you return through the wood," said the witch, "throw over them a few drops of the potion, and their fingers will be torn into a thousand pieces."

Who acts: polypi, you · What happens: seize, return, say, throw, tear, hold · To what, where: hold, wood, witch, few drops, fingers, thousand pieces · Speech: someone speaks here

This is a sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, The Little Mermaid, part 3. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (polypi, you), 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	If	if	SCONJ	_	5 seize	mark
2	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	3 polypi	det
3	polypi	polypi	NOUN	Number=Sing	5 seize	nsubj
4	should	should	AUX	VerbForm=Fin	5 seize	aux
5	seize	seize	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	17 said	advcl
6	hold	hold	NOUN	Number=Sing	5 seize	obj
7	of	of	ADP	_	8 you	case
8	you	you	PRON	Case=Acc Person=2 PronType=Prs	6 hold	nmod
9	as	as	SCONJ	_	11 return	mark
10	you	you	PRON	Case=Nom Person=2 PronType=Prs	11 return	nsubj
11	return	return	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=2 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	5 seize	advcl
12	through	through	ADP	_	14 wood	case
13	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	14 wood	det
14	wood	wood	NOUN	Number=Sing	11 return	obl
15	,	,	PUNCT	_	11 return	punct
16	"	"	PUNCT	_	5 seize	punct
17	said	say	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=1 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	root	root
18	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	19 witch	det
19	witch	witch	NOUN	Number=Sing	17 said	obj
20	,	,	PUNCT	_	22 throw	punct
21	"	"	PUNCT	_	22 throw	punct
22	throw	throw	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	17 said	conj
23	over	over	ADP	_	24 them	case
24	them	they	PRON	Case=Acc Number=Plur Person=3 PronType=Prs	22 throw	obl
25	a	a	DET	Definite=Ind PronType=Art	27 drops	det
26	few	few	ADJ	Degree=Pos	27 drops	amod
27	drops	drop	NOUN	Number=Plur	22 throw	obj
28	of	of	ADP	_	30 potion	case
29	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	30 potion	det
30	potion	potion	NOUN	Number=Sing	27 drops	nmod
31	,	,	PUNCT	_	37 torn	punct
32	and	and	CCONJ	_	37 torn	cc
33	their	their	PRON	Case=Gen Number=Plur Person=3 Poss=Yes PronType=Prs	34 fingers	nmod:poss
34	fingers	finger	NOUN	Number=Plur	37 torn	nsubj:pass
35	will	will	AUX	VerbForm=Fin	37 torn	aux
36	be	be	AUX	VerbForm=Inf	37 torn	aux:pass
37	torn	tear	VERB	Tense=Past VerbForm=Part Voice=Pass	17 said	conj
38	into	into	ADP	_	41 pieces	case
39	a	a	DET	Definite=Ind PronType=Art	40 thousand	det
40	thousand	thousand	NUM	NumForm=Word NumType=Card	41 pieces	nummod
41	pieces	piece	NOUN	Number=Plur	37 torn	obl
42	.	.	PUNCT	_	17 said	punct
43	"	"	PUNCT	_	17 said	punct

Pragmatics

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	where	other	roles by
1	seize a condition, not said to happen	should	the polypi	hold of you			vn obtain-13.5.2 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent hold=Theme
2	return	present	you		the wood		vn escape-51.1-1 «NP V PP.initial_location»: agent=Theme through wood=Initial_Location
3	say speech: assert in a quote	past		the witch			vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V NP.topic»: agent=Agent witch=Topic
4	throw	infinitive		a few drops of the potion		over snakes = snake	vn throw-17.1-1-1 «NP V NP PP.destinations»: agent=Agent drop=Theme over they=Destination
5	tear	future · passive		snakes's fingers		into thousand pieces result	vn break-45.1 «NP V NP PP.result»: subject=Patient into piece=Result
6	hold			you			nom hold «act transitive»: of=patient

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/pg27200/77/34/