Irish Fairy Tales, Chapter I, sentence 17
He would be their life; and their eyes may have seemed as twin benedictions resting on the small fair head.
Who acts: life, eyes, twin benedictions · What happens: be, have, seem, rest · To what, where: life, small fair head
This is a sentence of «Irish Fairy Tales» by James Stephens, Chapter I. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (life, eyes, twin benedictions), 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 | 5 life | nsubj |
| 2 | would | would | AUX | VerbForm=Fin | 5 life | aux |
| 3 | be | be | AUX | VerbForm=Inf | 5 life | cop |
| 4 | their | their | PRON | Case=Gen Number=Plur Person=3 Poss=Yes PronType=Prs | 5 life | nmod:poss |
| 5 | life | life | NOUN | Number=Sing | root | root |
| 6 | ; | ; | PUNCT | _ | 11 have | punct |
| 7 | and | and | CCONJ | _ | 11 have | cc |
| 8 | their | their | PRON | Case=Gen Number=Plur Person=3 Poss=Yes PronType=Prs | 9 eyes | nmod:poss |
| 9 | eyes | eye | NOUN | Number=Plur | 11 have | nsubj |
| 10 | may | may | AUX | VerbForm=Fin | 11 have | aux |
| 11 | have | have | VERB | VerbForm=Inf | 5 life | parataxis |
| 12 | seemed | seem | VERB | Mood=Ind Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | 11 have | ccomp |
| 13 | as | as | ADP | _ | 15 benedictions | case |
| 14 | twin | twin | NOUN | Number=Sing | 15 benedictions | compound |
| 15 | benedictions | benediction | NOUN | Number=Plur | 12 seemed | obl |
| 16 | resting | rest | VERB | VerbForm=Ger | 15 benedictions | acl |
| 17 | on | on | ADP | _ | 21 head | case |
| 18 | the | the | DET | Definite=Def PronType=Art | 21 head | det |
| 19 | small | small | ADJ | Degree=Pos | 21 head | amod |
| 20 | fair | fair | ADJ | Degree=Pos | 21 head | amod |
| 21 | head | head | NOUN | Number=Sing | 16 resting | obl |
| 22 | . | . | PUNCT | _ | 5 life | punct |
Pragmatics
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | is a | would | life | women's life | tree rules | ||||
| 2 | have | may | women's eyes | tree rules | |||||
| 3 | seem | past | women's eyes not said here | as twin benedictions | vn seem-109-1-1-1 «NP V S_INF»: agent=Theme | ||||
| 4 | rest | gerund | twin benedictions not said here | the small fair head | vn spatial_configuration-47.6-1 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Theme on head=Location |
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: «Irish Fairy Tales» by James Stephens, Project Gutenberg book 2892 (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/pg2892/14/17/