Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen, The Marsh King's Daughter, part 4, sentence 68

The worm crawled forth from the moist ground, and the moles crept out; but, excepting these, all around had the stillness of death: but when people say this, they do not quite understand themselves what they mean.

Who acts: worm, moles, people · What happens: crawl, creep out, except, have, say, not understand · To what, where: moist ground, these, stillness, this, people · Speech: someone speaks here

This is a sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, The Marsh King's Daughter, part 4. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (worm, moles, people), 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 worm	det
2	worm	worm	NOUN	Number=Sing	3 crawled	nsubj
3	crawled	crawl	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	root	root
4	forth	forth	ADV	_	3 crawled	advmod
5	from	from	ADP	_	8 ground	case
6	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	8 ground	det
7	moist	moist	ADJ	Degree=Pos	8 ground	amod
8	ground	ground	NOUN	Number=Sing	3 crawled	obl
9	,	,	PUNCT	_	13 crept	punct
10	and	and	CCONJ	_	13 crept	cc
11	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	12 moles	det
12	moles	mole	NOUN	Number=Plur	13 crept	nsubj
13	crept	creep	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	3 crawled	parataxis
14	out	out	ADP	_	13 crept	compound:prt
15	;	;	PUNCT	_	23 had	punct
16	but	but	CCONJ	_	23 had	cc
17	,	,	PUNCT	_	18 excepting	punct
18	excepting	except	VERB	Tense=Pres VerbForm=Part	23 had	advcl
19	these	this	PRON	Number=Plur PronType=Dem	18 excepting	obj
20	,	,	PUNCT	_	22 around	punct
21	all	all	ADV	_	22 around	advmod
22	around	around	ADV	_	18 excepting	advmod
23	had	have	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=1 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	3 crawled	parataxis
24	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	25 stillness	det
25	stillness	stillness	NOUN	Number=Sing	23 had	obj
26	of	of	ADP	_	27 death	case
27	death	death	NOUN	Number=Sing	25 stillness	nmod
28	:	:	PUNCT	_	39 understand	punct
29	but	but	CCONJ	_	39 understand	cc
30	when	when	ADV	PronType=Int	32 say	advmod
31	people	people	NOUN	Number=Plur	32 say	nsubj
32	say	say	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	39 understand	advcl
33	this	this	PRON	Number=Sing PronType=Dem	32 say	obj
34	,	,	PUNCT	_	32 say	punct
35	they	they	PRON	Case=Nom Number=Plur Person=3 PronType=Prs	39 understand	nsubj
36	do	do	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	39 understand	aux
37	not	not	PART	Polarity=Neg	39 understand	advmod
38	quite	quite	ADV	_	39 understand	advmod
39	understand	understand	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	3 crawled	parataxis
40	themselves	themselves	PRON	Case=Acc Number=Plur Person=3 PronType=Prs Reflex=Yes	39 understand	obj
41	what	what	PRON	PronType=Int	43 mean	obj
42	they	they	PRON	Case=Nom Number=Plur Person=3 PronType=Prs	43 mean	nsubj
43	mean	mean	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	39 understand	ccomp
44	.	.	PUNCT	_	3 crawled	punct

Pragmatics

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	where	other	roles by
1	crawl	past	the worm		the moist ground	forth property	vn run-51.3.2 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Theme from ground=Trajectory
2	creep out	past	the moles				vn run-51.3.2 «NP V»: agent=Theme
3	except	gerund		these		around property	tree rules
4	have	past		the stillness of death			vn birth-28.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent stillness=Patient
5	say speech: assert	present	people	this			vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V NP.topic»: agent=Agent this=Topic
6	not understand	present · do-support	people	people			tree rules
7	mean	present	moles = mole				vn intend-61.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent what=Topic

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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