Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen, The Bell, sentence 16

It was a wisdom owl, which continually knocked its head against the tree, but he was unable to say with certainty whether its head or the hollow trunk of the tree was the cause of the noise.

Who acts: sound, many, head · What happens: be, knock, say · To what, where: wisdom owl, cause · Speech: someone speaks here

This is a sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, The Bell. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (sound, many, head), 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	It	it	PRON	Case=Nom Gender=Neut Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	5 owl	nsubj
2	was	be	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	5 owl	cop
3	a	a	DET	Definite=Ind PronType=Art	5 owl	det
4	wisdom	wisdom	NOUN	Number=Sing	5 owl	compound
5	owl	owl	NOUN	Number=Sing	root	root
6	,	,	PUNCT	_	9 knocked	punct
7	which	which	PRON	PronType=Rel	9 knocked	obj
8	continually	continually	ADV	_	9 knocked	advmod
9	knocked	knock	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	5 owl	parataxis
10	its	its	PRON	Case=Gen Gender=Neut Number=Sing Person=3 Poss=Yes PronType=Prs	11 head	nmod:poss
11	head	head	NOUN	Number=Sing	9 knocked	obj
12	against	against	ADP	_	14 tree	case
13	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	14 tree	det
14	tree	tree	NOUN	Number=Sing	9 knocked	obl
15	,	,	PUNCT	_	19 unable	punct
16	but	but	CCONJ	_	19 unable	cc
17	he	he	PRON	Case=Nom Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	19 unable	nsubj
18	was	be	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	19 unable	cop
19	unable	unable	ADJ	Degree=Pos	9 knocked	conj
20	to	to	PART	_	21 say	mark
21	say	say	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	19 unable	xcomp
22	with	with	ADP	_	23 certainty	case
23	certainty	certainty	NOUN	Number=Sing	21 say	obl
24	whether	whether	SCONJ	_	36 cause	mark
25	its	its	PRON	Case=Gen Gender=Neut Number=Sing Person=3 Poss=Yes PronType=Prs	26 head	nmod:poss
26	head	head	NOUN	Number=Sing	36 cause	nsubj
27	or	or	CCONJ	_	30 trunk	cc
28	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	30 trunk	det
29	hollow	hollow	ADJ	Degree=Pos	30 trunk	amod
30	trunk	trunk	NOUN	Number=Sing	26 head	conj
31	of	of	ADP	_	33 tree	case
32	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	33 tree	det
33	tree	tree	NOUN	Number=Sing	30 trunk	nmod
34	was	be	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	36 cause	cop
35	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	36 cause	det
36	cause	cause	NOUN	Number=Sing	21 say	advcl
37	of	of	ADP	_	39 noise	case
38	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	39 noise	det
39	noise	noise	NOUN	Number=Sing	36 cause	nmod
40	.	.	PUNCT	_	5 owl	punct

Pragmatics

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	other	roles by
1	is a	past	sound	a wisdom owl		tree rules
2	knock	past		a wisdom owl	against the tree; continually property	vn throw-17.1-1 «NP V NP-Dative NP»: agent=Agent which=Destination head=Theme
3	is	past	many		unable property	tree rules
4	say speech: assert	to-infinitive	many not said here		with certainty	vn pronounce-29.3.1 «NP V NP PP.manner»: agent=Agent with certainty=Manner
5	is a	past	sound's head or the hollow trunk of the tree	the cause	of the noise	tree rules

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/pg27200/9/16/