Just so stories, The Elephant’s Child, sentence 82

When he wanted grass he plucked grass up from the ground, instead of going on his knees as he used to do.

Who acts: Child · What happens: want, pluck up, go, use, do · To what, where: grass, ground, knees

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 (Child), 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	When	when	ADV	PronType=Int	3 wanted	advmod
2	he	he	PRON	Case=Nom Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	3 wanted	nsubj
3	wanted	want	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	6 plucked	advcl
4	grass	grass	NOUN	Number=Sing	3 wanted	obj
5	he	he	PRON	Case=Nom Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	6 plucked	nsubj
6	plucked	pluck	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	root	root
7	grass	grass	NOUN	Number=Sing	6 plucked	obj
8	up	up	ADV	_	6 plucked	advmod
9	from	from	ADP	_	11 ground	case
10	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	11 ground	det
11	ground	ground	NOUN	Number=Sing	6 plucked	obl
12	,	,	PUNCT	_	15 going	punct
13	instead	instead	ADV	ExtPos=SCONJ	15 going	mark
14	of	of	ADP	_	13 instead	fixed
15	going	go	VERB	Tense=Pres VerbForm=Part	6 plucked	advcl
16	on	on	ADP	_	18 knees	case
17	his	his	PRON	Case=Gen Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 Poss=Yes PronType=Prs	18 knees	nmod:poss
18	knees	knee	NOUN	Number=Plur	15 going	obl
19	as	as	SCONJ	_	21 used	mark
20	he	he	PRON	Case=Nom Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	21 used	nsubj
21	used	use	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	15 going	advcl
22	to	to	PART	_	23 do	mark
23	do	do	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	21 used	xcomp
24	.	.	PUNCT	_	6 plucked	punct

Pragmatics

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	where	roles by
1	want	past	Child	grass		vn want-32.1-1-1 «NP V NP ADV»: agent=Pivot grass=Theme
2	pluck up	past	Child	grass	the ground	vn get-13.5.1 «NP V NP PP.source»: agent=Agent grass=Theme from ground=Source
3	go	gerund	Child not said here		Child's knees	vn occur-48.3-2 «NP V PP»: agent=Theme on knee=Location
4	use	past	Child			vn use-105.1 «NP V NP S_INF»: agent=Agent clause=Eventuality
5	do	to-infinitive	Child not said here			vn act-114-1 «NP V»: 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/pg2781/6/82/