Just so stories, The Butterfly That Stamped, sentence 162

There was never a King like Solomon, Not since the world began; But Solomon talked to a butterfly As a man would talk to a man.

Who acts: world, Solomon, man · What happens: be, not begin, talk · To what, where: King

This is a sentence of «Just so stories» by Rudyard Kipling, The Butterfly That Stamped. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (world, Solomon, man), 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	There	there	PRON	PronType=Dem	2 was	expl
2	was	be	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	root	root
3	never	never	ADV	PronType=Neg	5 King	advmod
4	a	a	DET	Definite=Ind PronType=Art	5 King	det
5	King	King	PROPN	Number=Sing	2 was	obl
6	like	like	ADP	_	7 Solomon	case
7	Solomon	Solomon	PROPN	Number=Sing	5 King	nmod
8	,	,	PUNCT	_	13 began	punct
9	Not	not	PART	Polarity=Neg	13 began	advmod
10	since	since	SCONJ	_	13 began	mark
11	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	12 world	det
12	world	world	NOUN	Number=Sing	13 began	nsubj
13	began	begin	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	2 was	parataxis
14	;	;	PUNCT	_	17 talked	punct
15	But	but	CCONJ	_	17 talked	cc
16	Solomon	Solomon	PROPN	Number=Sing	17 talked	nsubj
17	talked	talk	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	2 was	conj
18	to	to	ADP	_	20 butterfly	case
19	a	a	DET	Definite=Ind PronType=Art	20 butterfly	det
20	butterfly	butterfly	NOUN	Number=Sing	17 talked	obl
21	As	as	SCONJ	_	25 talk	mark
22	a	a	DET	Definite=Ind PronType=Art	23 man	det
23	man	man	NOUN	Number=Sing	25 talk	nsubj
24	would	would	AUX	VerbForm=Fin	25 talk	aux
25	talk	talk	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	17 talked	advcl
26	to	to	ADP	_	28 man	case
27	a	a	DET	Definite=Ind PronType=Art	28 man	det
28	man	man	NOUN	Number=Sing	25 talk	obl
29	.	.	PUNCT	_	2 was	punct

Pragmatics

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	where	other	roles by
1	be	past		a King like Solomon	there		vn exist-47.1 «NP V»: agent=Theme
2	not begin	past	the world				vn begin-55.1-1-1 «NP.eventuality V»: agent=Eventuality
3	talk	past	Solomon			to a butterfly	vn talk-37.5 «NP V PP.co-agent»: agent=Agent to butterfly=Co-Agent
4	talk	would	a man			to a man	vn talk-37.5 «NP V PP.co-agent»: agent=Agent to man=Co-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: «Just so stories» by Rudyard Kipling, Project Gutenberg book 2781 (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/pg2781/13/162/