Irish Fairy Tales, Chapter VIII, sentence 7

They were trained to pick out of shadows birds that were themselves dun-coloured shades, and to see among trees the animals that are coloured like the bark of trees.

Who acts: eyes, that · What happens: train, pick out, be, see, colour · To what, where: eyes, shadows birds, animals

This is a sentence of «Irish Fairy Tales» by James Stephens, Chapter VIII. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (eyes, that), 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	They	they	PRON	Case=Nom Number=Plur Person=3 PronType=Prs	3 trained	nsubj:pass
2	were	be	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	3 trained	aux:pass
3	trained	train	VERB	Tense=Past VerbForm=Part Voice=Pass	root	root
4	to	to	PART	_	5 pick	mark
5	pick	pick	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	3 trained	xcomp
6	out	out	ADP	_	9 birds	case
7	of	of	ADP	_	9 birds	case
8	shadows	shadow	NOUN	Number=Plur	9 birds	compound
9	birds	bird	NOUN	Number=Plur	5 pick	obl
10	that	that	PRON	PronType=Rel	11 were	nsubj
11	were	be	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	9 birds	conj
12	themselves	themselves	PRON	Case=Acc Number=Plur Person=3 PronType=Prs Reflex=Yes	11 were	obj
13	dun	dun	NOUN	Number=Sing	16 shades	compound
14	-	-	PUNCT	_	13 dun	punct
15	coloured	coloured	ADJ	Degree=Pos	16 shades	amod
16	shades	shade	NOUN	Number=Plur	11 were	nsubj
17	,	,	PUNCT	_	20 see	punct
18	and	and	CCONJ	_	20 see	cc
19	to	to	PART	_	20 see	mark
20	see	see	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	3 trained	conj
21	among	among	ADP	_	22 trees	case
22	trees	tree	NOUN	Number=Plur	20 see	obl
23	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	24 animals	det
24	animals	animal	NOUN	Number=Plur	20 see	obj
25	that	that	PRON	PronType=Rel	27 coloured	nsubj:pass
26	are	be	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	27 coloured	aux:pass
27	coloured	colour	VERB	Tense=Past VerbForm=Part Voice=Pass	24 animals	acl:relcl
28	like	like	ADP	_	30 bark	case
29	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	30 bark	det
30	bark	bark	NOUN	Number=Sing	27 coloured	obl
31	of	of	ADP	_	32 trees	case
32	trees	tree	NOUN	Number=Plur	30 bark	nmod
33	.	.	PUNCT	_	3 trained	punct

Pragmatics

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	other	roles by
1	train	past · passive		eyes = eye		vn hire-13.5.3 «NP V NP to be NP»: subject=Theme clause=Attribute
2	pick out	to-infinitive	eyes = eye not said here	shadows birds		vn chew-39.2 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent bird=Patient
3	be	past	that	eyes = eye		vn representation-110.1 «NP V NP»: agent=Pivot themselves=Theme
4	see	to-infinitive		the animals	among trees	vn comprehend-87.2-1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Experiencer animal=Stimulus
5	colour	present · passive		the animals	like the bark of trees	tree rules

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/pg2892/21/7/