Irish Fairy Tales, Chapter I, sentence 35

There would be flies to be watched, slender atoms in yellow gauze that flew, and filmy specks that flittered, and sturdy, thick-ribbed brutes that pounced like cats and bit like dogs and flew like lightning.

Who acts: flies, yellow gauze, filmy specks, ribbed brutes · What happens: be, watch, fly, flitter, rib, pounce · To what, where: slender atoms

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 (flies, yellow gauze, filmy specks, ribbed brutes), 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	There	there	PRON	PronType=Dem	3 be	expl
2	would	would	AUX	VerbForm=Fin	3 be	aux
3	be	be	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	root	root
4	flies	fly	NOUN	Number=Plur	3 be	nsubj
5	to	to	PART	_	7 watched	mark
6	be	be	AUX	VerbForm=Inf	7 watched	aux:pass
7	watched	watch	VERB	Tense=Past VerbForm=Part Voice=Pass	4 flies	acl
8	,	,	PUNCT	_	10 atoms	punct
9	slender	slender	ADJ	Degree=Pos	10 atoms	amod
10	atoms	atom	NOUN	Number=Plur	7 watched	obl
11	in	in	ADP	_	13 gauze	case
12	yellow	yellow	ADJ	Degree=Pos	13 gauze	amod
13	gauze	gauze	NOUN	Number=Sing	10 atoms	nmod
14	that	that	PRON	PronType=Rel	15 flew	nsubj
15	flew	fly	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	13 gauze	acl:relcl
16	,	,	PUNCT	_	21 flittered	punct
17	and	and	CCONJ	_	21 flittered	cc
18	filmy	filmy	ADJ	Degree=Pos	19 specks	amod
19	specks	speck	NOUN	Number=Plur	21 flittered	nsubj
20	that	that	PRON	PronType=Rel	21 flittered	nsubj
21	flittered	flitter	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	7 watched	conj
22	,	,	PUNCT	_	24 sturdy	punct
23	and	and	CCONJ	_	24 sturdy	cc
24	sturdy	sturdy	ADJ	Degree=Pos	21 flittered	parataxis
25	,	,	PUNCT	_	29 brutes	punct
26	thick	thick	ADJ	Degree=Pos	28 ribbed	compound
27	-	-	PUNCT	_	26 thick	punct
28	ribbed	rib	VERB	Tense=Past VerbForm=Part Voice=Pass	29 brutes	amod
29	brutes	brute	NOUN	Number=Plur	24 sturdy	obl
30	that	that	PRON	PronType=Rel	31 pounced	nsubj
31	pounced	pounce	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	29 brutes	acl:relcl
32	like	like	ADP	_	33 cats	case
33	cats	cat	NOUN	Number=Plur	31 pounced	obl
34	and	and	CCONJ	_	35 bit	cc
35	bit	bit	NOUN	Number=Sing	33 cats	conj
36	like	like	ADP	_	37 dogs	case
37	dogs	dog	NOUN	Number=Plur	33 cats	nmod
38	and	and	CCONJ	_	39 flew	cc
39	flew	fly	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	31 pounced	conj
40	like	like	ADP	_	41 lightning	case
41	lightning	lightning	NOUN	Number=Sing	39 flew	obl
42	.	.	PUNCT	_	3 be	punct

Pragmatics

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	where	other	roles by
1	be	would	flies		there		vn exist-47.1 «NP V»: agent=Theme
2	watch	to-infinitive · passive	flies not said here	slender atoms in yellow gauze			vn search-35.2 «NP V PP.location»
3	fly	past	yellow gauze				vn spatial_configuration-47.6-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme
4	flitter	past	filmy specks				tree rules
5	rib	participle					tree rules
6	pounce	past	ribbed brutes			like cats like dogs and bit	vn run-51.3.2 «NP V»: agent=Theme
7	fly	past	ribbed brutes not said here			like lightning	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: «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/pg2892/14/35/