Just so stories, The Elephant’s Child, sentence 63

At the end of the third day a fly came and stung him on the shoulder, and before he knew what he was doing he lifted up his trunk and hit that fly dead with the end of it.

Who acts: fly, that · What happens: come, sting, know, do, lift up, hit · To what, where: end, fly, trunk · 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 (fly, that), 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	At	at	ADP	_	3 end	case
2	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	3 end	det
3	end	end	NOUN	Number=Sing	10 came	obl
4	of	of	ADP	_	7 day	case
5	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	7 day	det
6	third	third	ADJ	Degree=Pos NumForm=Word NumType=Ord	7 day	amod
7	day	day	NOUN	Number=Sing	3 end	nmod
8	a	a	DET	Definite=Ind PronType=Art	9 fly	det
9	fly	fly	NOUN	Number=Sing	10 came	nsubj
10	came	come	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	root	root
11	and	and	CCONJ	_	12 stung	cc
12	stung	sting	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	10 came	conj
13	him	he	PRON	Case=Acc Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	12 stung	obj
14	on	on	ADP	_	16 shoulder	case
15	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	16 shoulder	det
16	shoulder	shoulder	NOUN	Number=Sing	12 stung	obl
17	,	,	PUNCT	_	21 knew	punct
18	and	and	CCONJ	_	21 knew	cc
19	before	before	SCONJ	_	21 knew	mark
20	he	he	PRON	Case=Nom Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	21 knew	nsubj
21	knew	know	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	10 came	conj
22	what	what	PRON	PronType=Int	25 doing	obj
23	he	he	PRON	Case=Nom Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	25 doing	nsubj
24	was	be	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	25 doing	aux
25	doing	do	VERB	Tense=Pres VerbForm=Part	21 knew	ccomp
26	he	he	PRON	Case=Nom Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	27 lifted	nsubj
27	lifted	lift	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	25 doing	ccomp
28	up	up	ADP	_	27 lifted	compound:prt
29	his	his	PRON	Case=Gen Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 Poss=Yes PronType=Prs	30 trunk	nmod:poss
30	trunk	trunk	NOUN	Number=Sing	27 lifted	obj
31	and	and	CCONJ	_	32 hit	cc
32	hit	hit	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	27 lifted	conj
33	that	that	PRON	Number=Sing PronType=Dem	34 fly	nsubj
34	fly	fly	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	32 hit	ccomp
35	dead	dead	ADJ	Degree=Pos	34 fly	xcomp
36	with	with	ADP	_	38 end	case
37	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	38 end	det
38	end	end	NOUN	Number=Sing	35 dead	obl
39	of	of	ADP	_	40 it	case
40	it	it	PRON	Case=Acc Gender=Neut Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	38 end	nmod
41	.	.	PUNCT	_	10 came	punct

Pragmatics

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	when	other	roles by
1	come	past	a fly		at the end of the third day		vn appear-48.1.1 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Theme at end=Location
2	sting	past	a fly not said here	fly		on the shoulder	vn touch-20-1 «NP V NP PP.theme PP.instrument»: agent=Agent he=Experiencer on shoulder=Theme
3	know	past	fly				vn comprehend-87.2-1-1-1 «NP V how S_INF»: agent=Experiencer clause=Stimulus
4	do	past · progressive	fly				tree rules
5	lift up	past	fly	fly's trunk			vn put_direction-9.4 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent trunk=Theme
6	hit	past	fly not said here				tree rules
7	fly	present	that			dead property	vn spatial_configuration-47.6-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme

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/pg2781/6/63/