Just so stories, The Butterfly That Stamped, sentence 8

He understood what the beasts said, what the birds said, what the fishes said, and what the insects said.

Who acts: Suleiman, beasts, birds, fishes, insects · What happens: understand, say · Speech: someone speaks here

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 (Suleiman, beasts, birds, fishes), 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	He	he	PRON	Case=Nom Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	2 understood	nsubj
2	understood	understand	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	root	root
3	what	what	PRON	PronType=Int	6 said	obj
4	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	5 beasts	det
5	beasts	beast	NOUN	Number=Plur	6 said	nsubj
6	said	say	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	2 understood	ccomp
7	,	,	PUNCT	_	11 said	punct
8	what	what	PRON	PronType=Int	11 said	obj
9	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	10 birds	det
10	birds	bird	NOUN	Number=Plur	11 said	nsubj
11	said	say	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	6 said	ccomp
12	,	,	PUNCT	_	16 said	punct
13	what	what	PRON	PronType=Int	16 said	obj
14	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	15 fishes	det
15	fishes	fish	NOUN	Number=Plur	16 said	nsubj
16	said	say	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	11 said	conj
17	,	,	PUNCT	_	19 what	punct
18	and	and	CCONJ	_	19 what	cc
19	what	what	PRON	PronType=Int	16 said	ccomp
20	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	21 insects	det
21	insects	insect	NOUN	Number=Plur	22 said	nsubj
22	said	say	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	19 what	acl:relcl
23	.	.	PUNCT	_	2 understood	punct

Pragmatics

#	verb	tense, mood	who	roles by
1	understand	past	Suleiman	vn comprehend-87.2-1-1-1 «NP V how S_INF»: agent=Experiencer clause=Stimulus
2	say speech: assert	past	the beasts	tree rules
3	say speech: assert	past	the birds	vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V NP.topic»: agent=Agent what=Topic
4	say speech: assert	past	the fishes	vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V NP.topic»: agent=Agent what=Topic
5	say speech: assert	past	the insects	vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=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/pg2781/13/8/