Irish Fairy Tales, Chapter I, sentence 38

The flies change from second to second; one cannot tell if this bird is a visitor or an inhabitant, and a sheep is just sister to a sheep; but the women were as rooted as the house itself.

Who acts: flies, one, bird, sheep · What happens: change, not tell, be, root · To what, where: visitor, sister, women · 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 (flies, one, bird, sheep), 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	The	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	2 flies	det
2	flies	fly	NOUN	Number=Plur	3 change	nsubj
3	change	change	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	root	root
4	from	from	ADP	_	5 second	case
5	second	second	NOUN	Number=Sing	3 change	obl
6	to	to	ADP	_	7 second	case
7	second	second	NOUN	Number=Sing	3 change	obl
8	;	;	PUNCT	_	12 tell	punct
9	one	one	NUM	NumForm=Word NumType=Card	12 tell	nsubj
10	can	can	AUX	VerbForm=Fin	12 tell	aux
11	not	not	PART	Polarity=Neg	12 tell	advmod
12	tell	tell	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	3 change	parataxis
13	if	if	SCONJ	_	18 visitor	mark
14	this	this	DET	Number=Sing PronType=Dem	15 bird	det
15	bird	bird	NOUN	Number=Sing	18 visitor	nsubj
16	is	be	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	18 visitor	cop
17	a	a	DET	Definite=Ind PronType=Art	18 visitor	det
18	visitor	visitor	NOUN	Number=Sing	12 tell	ccomp
19	or	or	CCONJ	_	21 inhabitant	cc
20	an	a	DET	Definite=Ind PronType=Art	21 inhabitant	det
21	inhabitant	inhabitant	NOUN	Number=Sing	18 visitor	conj
22	,	,	PUNCT	_	28 sister	punct
23	and	and	CCONJ	_	28 sister	cc
24	a	a	DET	Definite=Ind PronType=Art	25 sheep	det
25	sheep	sheep	NOUN	Number=Sing	28 sister	nsubj
26	is	be	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	28 sister	cop
27	just	just	ADV	_	28 sister	advmod
28	sister	sister	NOUN	Number=Sing	12 tell	obl
29	to	to	ADP	_	31 sheep	case
30	a	a	DET	Definite=Ind PronType=Art	31 sheep	det
31	sheep	sheep	NOUN	Number=Sing	28 sister	nmod
32	;	;	PUNCT	_	38 rooted	punct
33	but	but	CCONJ	_	38 rooted	cc
34	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	35 women	det
35	women	woman	NOUN	Number=Plur	38 rooted	nsubj:pass
36	were	be	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	38 rooted	aux:pass
37	as	as	ADV	_	38 rooted	advmod
38	rooted	root	VERB	Tense=Past VerbForm=Part Voice=Pass	3 change	parataxis
39	as	as	ADP	_	41 house	case
40	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	41 house	det
41	house	house	NOUN	Number=Sing	38 rooted	obl
42	itself	itself	PRON	Case=Acc Gender=Neut Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Emp Reflex=Yes	41 house	nmod:unmarked
43	.	.	PUNCT	_	3 change	punct

Pragmatics

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	when	other	roles by
1	change	present	the flies		second		vn dress-41.1.1-1-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent
2	not tell speech: assert	can	one				vn transfer_mesg-37.1.1-1-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent
3	is a a condition, not said to happen	present	this bird	a visitor or a inhabitant			tree rules
4	is a	present	a sheep	sister		to a sheep	tree rules
5	root	past · passive		the women		as the house sheep	vn other_cos-45.4 «NP V NP.patient»: subject=Patient

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/pg2892/14/38/