Irish Fairy Tales, Chapter VII, sentence 36

But when he was looking to the front what, or how many whats, could be staring at him from the back?

Who acts: Fionn · What happens: look, stare · To what, where: many whats, back

This is a sentence of «Irish Fairy Tales» by James Stephens, Chapter VII. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Fionn), 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	But	but	CCONJ	_	18 staring	cc
2	when	when	SCONJ	_	5 looking	mark
3	he	he	PRON	Case=Nom Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	5 looking	nsubj
4	was	be	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	5 looking	aux
5	looking	look	VERB	Tense=Pres VerbForm=Part	18 staring	advcl
6	to	to	ADP	_	8 front	case
7	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	8 front	det
8	front	front	NOUN	Number=Sing	5 looking	obl
9	what	what	PRON	PronType=Rel	5 looking	obl
10	,	,	PUNCT	_	14 whats	punct
11	or	or	CCONJ	_	14 whats	cc
12	how	how	ADV	PronType=Int	13 many	advmod
13	many	many	ADJ	Degree=Pos	14 whats	amod
14	whats	what	NOUN	Number=Plur	5 looking	obl
15	,	,	PUNCT	_	5 looking	punct
16	could	could	AUX	VerbForm=Fin	18 staring	aux
17	be	be	AUX	VerbForm=Inf	18 staring	aux
18	staring	stare	VERB	Tense=Pres VerbForm=Part	root	root
19	at	at	ADP	_	20 him	case
20	him	he	PRON	Case=Acc Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	18 staring	obl
21	from	from	ADP	_	23 back	case
22	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	23 back	det
23	back	back	NOUN	Number=Sing	18 staring	obl
24	?	?	PUNCT	_	18 staring	punct

Pragmatics

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	look	past · progressive	Fionn	many whats				to the front	vn peer-30.3 «NP V PP.theme»: agent=Agent to front=Theme
2	stare	could · progressive				the back		at Fionn	vn peer-30.3 «NP V PP.theme»: agent=Agent at he=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/pg2892/20/36/