Just so stories, The Elephant’s Child, sentence 2

He had only a blackish, bulgy nose, as big as a boot, that he could wriggle about from side to side; but he couldn’t pick up things with it.

Who acts: Beloved · What happens: have, wriggle, not pick up · To what, where: blackish bulgy nose, side, things

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 (Beloved), 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 had	nsubj
2	had	have	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	root	root
3	only	only	ADV	_	8 nose	advmod
4	a	a	DET	Definite=Ind PronType=Art	8 nose	det
5	blackish	blackish	ADJ	Degree=Pos	8 nose	amod
6	,	,	PUNCT	_	5 blackish	punct
7	bulgy	bulgy	ADJ	Degree=Pos	8 nose	amod
8	nose	nose	NOUN	Number=Sing	2 had	obj
9	,	,	PUNCT	_	11 big	punct
10	as	as	ADV	_	11 big	advmod
11	big	big	ADJ	Degree=Pos	2 had	parataxis
12	as	as	ADP	_	14 boot	case
13	a	a	DET	Definite=Ind PronType=Art	14 boot	det
14	boot	boot	NOUN	Number=Sing	11 big	obl
15	,	,	PUNCT	_	19 wriggle	punct
16	that	that	SCONJ	_	19 wriggle	mark
17	he	he	PRON	Case=Nom Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	19 wriggle	nsubj
18	could	could	AUX	VerbForm=Fin	19 wriggle	aux
19	wriggle	wriggle	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	11 big	conj
20	about	about	ADV	_	19 wriggle	advmod
21	from	from	ADP	_	22 side	case
22	side	side	NOUN	Number=Sing	19 wriggle	obl
23	to	to	ADP	_	24 side	case
24	side	side	NOUN	Number=Sing	19 wriggle	obl
25	;	;	PUNCT	_	30 pick	punct
26	but	but	CCONJ	_	30 pick	cc
27	he	he	PRON	Case=Nom Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	30 pick	nsubj
28	could	could	AUX	VerbForm=Fin	30 pick	aux
29	n’t	not	PART	Polarity=Neg	30 pick	advmod
30	pick	pick	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	2 had	parataxis
31	up	up	ADP	_	30 pick	compound:prt
32	things	thing	NOUN	Number=Plur	30 pick	obj
33	with	with	ADP	_	34 it	case
34	it	it	PRON	Case=Acc Gender=Neut Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	30 pick	obl
35	.	.	PUNCT	_	2 had	punct

Pragmatics

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	where	other	roles by
1	have	past	Beloved	a blackish bulgy nose			vn birth-28.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent nose=Patient
2	wriggle	could	Beloved		side	to side; about property	vn body_internal_motion-49.1 «NP V»: agent=Agent
3	not pick up	could	Beloved	things		with side	vn discover-84-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent thing=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: «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/pg2781/6/2/