Irish Fairy Tales, Chapter I, sentence 32

“A boy,” he might think, as he stared on a staring horse, “a boy cannot wag his tail to keep the flies off,” and that lack may have saddened him.

Who acts: boy · What happens: think, stare, not wag, keep off, sadden · To what, where: tail, flies, lack · Speech: someone speaks here

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 (boy), 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	“	"	PUNCT	_	3 boy	punct
2	A	a	DET	Definite=Ind PronType=Art	3 boy	det
3	boy	boy	NOUN	Number=Sing	8 think	nsubj
4	,	,	PUNCT	_	3 boy	punct
5	”	"	PUNCT	_	3 boy	punct
6	he	he	PRON	Case=Nom Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	8 think	nsubj
7	might	might	AUX	VerbForm=Fin	8 think	aux
8	think	think	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	root	root
9	,	,	PUNCT	_	12 stared	punct
10	as	as	SCONJ	_	12 stared	mark
11	he	he	PRON	Case=Nom Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	12 stared	nsubj
12	stared	stare	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	8 think	ccomp
13	on	on	ADP	_	16 horse	case
14	a	a	DET	Definite=Ind PronType=Art	16 horse	det
15	staring	stare	VERB	VerbForm=Ger	16 horse	amod
16	horse	horse	NOUN	Number=Sing	12 stared	obl
17	,	,	PUNCT	_	23 wag	punct
18	“	"	PUNCT	_	23 wag	punct
19	a	a	DET	Definite=Ind PronType=Art	20 boy	det
20	boy	boy	NOUN	Number=Sing	23 wag	nsubj
21	can	can	AUX	VerbForm=Fin	23 wag	aux
22	not	not	PART	Polarity=Neg	23 wag	advmod
23	wag	wag	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	12 stared	parataxis
24	his	his	PRON	Case=Gen Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 Poss=Yes PronType=Prs	25 tail	nmod:poss
25	tail	tail	NOUN	Number=Sing	23 wag	obj
26	to	to	PART	_	27 keep	mark
27	keep	keep	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	23 wag	advcl
28	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	29 flies	det
29	flies	fly	NOUN	Number=Plur	27 keep	obj
30	off	off	ADP	_	27 keep	compound:prt
31	,	,	PUNCT	_	12 stared	punct
32	”	"	PUNCT	_	8 think	punct
33	and	and	CCONJ	_	38 saddened	cc
34	that	that	DET	Number=Sing PronType=Dem	35 lack	det
35	lack	lack	NOUN	Number=Sing	38 saddened	nsubj:pass
36	may	may	AUX	VerbForm=Fin	38 saddened	aux
37	have	have	AUX	VerbForm=Inf	38 saddened	aux
38	saddened	sadden	VERB	Tense=Past VerbForm=Part Voice=Pass	8 think	conj
39	him	he	PRON	Case=Acc Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	38 saddened	obj
40	.	.	PUNCT	_	8 think	punct

Pragmatics

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	other	roles by
1	think speech: other	might	a boy			vn consider-29.9-2 «NP V how S»: agent=Agent clause=Theme
2	stare	past	boy		on a staring horse	tree rules
3	stare	gerund				vn peer-30.3 «NP V PP.theme»: agent=Agent
4	not wag in a quote	can	a boy	boy's tail		vn crane-40.3.2 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent tail=Patient
5	keep off in a quote	to-infinitive	a boy not said here	the flies		vn keep-15.2 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent fly=Theme
6	sadden	may · perfect · passive		that lack		vn amuse-31.1 «NP V NP ADJ»: subject=Experiencer he=Result

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/pg2892/14/32/