Just so stories, The Elephant’s Child, sentence 10

He asked questions about everything that he saw, or heard, or felt, or smelt, or touched, and all his uncles and his aunts spanked him.

Who acts: Elephant, uncles · What happens: ask, see, hear, feel, touch, spank · To what, where: questions, smelt, Elephant · Speech: someone speaks here

This is a sentence of «Just so stories» by Rudyard Kipling, The Elephant’s Child. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Elephant, uncles), 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 asked	nsubj
2	asked	ask	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	root	root
3	questions	question	NOUN	Number=Plur	2 asked	obj
4	about	about	ADP	_	5 everything	case
5	everything	everything	PRON	Number=Sing PronType=Tot	3 questions	nmod
6	that	that	SCONJ	_	8 saw	mark
7	he	he	PRON	Case=Nom Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	8 saw	nsubj
8	saw	see	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	2 asked	ccomp
9	,	,	PUNCT	_	11 heard	punct
10	or	or	CCONJ	_	11 heard	cc
11	heard	hear	VERB	Tense=Past VerbForm=Part Voice=Pass	8 saw	conj
12	,	,	PUNCT	_	14 felt	punct
13	or	or	CCONJ	_	14 felt	cc
14	felt	feel	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=1 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	2 asked	parataxis
15	,	,	PUNCT	_	17 smelt	punct
16	or	or	CCONJ	_	17 smelt	cc
17	smelt	smelt	NOUN	Number=Sing	14 felt	obl
18	,	,	PUNCT	_	20 touched	punct
19	or	or	CCONJ	_	20 touched	cc
20	touched	touch	VERB	Tense=Past VerbForm=Part Voice=Pass	14 felt	conj
21	,	,	PUNCT	_	29 spanked	punct
22	and	and	CCONJ	_	29 spanked	cc
23	all	all	DET	PronType=Tot	25 uncles	det:predet
24	his	his	PRON	Case=Gen Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 Poss=Yes PronType=Prs	25 uncles	nmod:poss
25	uncles	uncle	NOUN	Number=Plur	29 spanked	nsubj
26	and	and	CCONJ	_	28 aunts	cc
27	his	his	PRON	Case=Gen Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 Poss=Yes PronType=Prs	28 aunts	nmod:poss
28	aunts	aunt	NOUN	Number=Plur	25 uncles	conj
29	spanked	spank	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	2 asked	conj
30	him	he	PRON	Case=Acc Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	29 spanked	obj
31	.	.	PUNCT	_	2 asked	punct

Pragmatics

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	other	roles by
1	ask speech: ask	past	Elephant	questions	about everything	vn inquire-37.1.2 «NP V NP whether S»: agent=Agent question=Recipient clause=Topic
2	see	past	Elephant			vn comprehend-87.2-1-1 «NP V»: agent=Experiencer
3	hear	participle	Elephant not said here			vn see-30.1-1-1 «NP V PP.stimulus»: agent=Experiencer
4	feel	past		smelt		vn stimulus_subject-30.4 «NP V PP.attribute»: agent=Stimulus
5	touch	participle				vn contiguous_location-47.8-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme
6	spank	past	Elephant's uncles and Elephant's aunts	Elephant		vn spank-18.3 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent he=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: «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/pg2781/6/10/