Irish Fairy Tales, Chapter XIV, sentence 1

He listened to the retreating footsteps until they could be heard no more, and the one sound that came to his tense ears was the beating of his own heart.

Who acts: He, one sound · What happens: listen, retreat, hear, come, be · To what, where: footsteps, tense ears, beating

This is a sentence of «Irish Fairy Tales» by James Stephens, Chapter XIV. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (He, one sound), 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	He	he	PRON	Case=Nom Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	2 listened	nsubj
2	listened	listen	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	root	root
3	to	to	ADP	_	6 footsteps	case
4	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	6 footsteps	det
5	retreating	retreat	VERB	VerbForm=Ger	6 footsteps	amod
6	footsteps	footstep	NOUN	Number=Plur	2 listened	obl
7	until	until	SCONJ	_	11 heard	mark
8	they	they	PRON	Case=Nom Number=Plur Person=3 PronType=Prs	11 heard	nsubj:pass
9	could	could	AUX	VerbForm=Fin	11 heard	aux
10	be	be	AUX	VerbForm=Inf	11 heard	aux:pass
11	heard	hear	VERB	Tense=Past VerbForm=Part Voice=Pass	2 listened	advcl
12	no	no	ADV	_	13 more	advmod
13	more	more	ADV	Degree=Cmp	11 heard	advmod
14	,	,	PUNCT	_	27 beating	punct
15	and	and	CCONJ	_	27 beating	cc
16	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	18 sound	det
17	one	one	NOUN	Number=Sing	18 sound	compound
18	sound	sound	NOUN	Number=Sing	27 beating	nsubj
19	that	that	PRON	PronType=Rel	20 came	nsubj
20	came	come	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	18 sound	acl:relcl
21	to	to	ADP	_	24 ears	case
22	his	his	PRON	Case=Gen Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 Poss=Yes PronType=Prs	24 ears	nmod:poss
23	tense	tense	NOUN	Number=Sing	24 ears	compound
24	ears	ear	NOUN	Number=Plur	20 came	obl
25	was	be	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	27 beating	cop
26	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	27 beating	det
27	beating	beating	NOUN	Number=Sing	2 listened	obl
28	of	of	ADP	_	31 heart	case
29	his	his	PRON	Case=Gen Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 Poss=Yes PronType=Prs	31 heart	nmod:poss
30	own	own	ADJ	Degree=Pos	31 heart	amod
31	heart	heart	NOUN	Number=Sing	27 beating	nmod
32	.	.	PUNCT	_	2 listened	punct

Pragmatics

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	where	other	roles by
1	listen	past	He			to the retreating footsteps	vn peer-30.3 «NP V PP.theme»: agent=Agent to footstep=Theme
2	retreat	gerund					vn calibratable_cos-45.6.1-1 «NP.attribute V»: agent=Attribute
3	hear	could · passive		footsteps = footstep			vn see-30.1-1-1 «NP V S»: subject=Stimulus
4	come	past	the one sound		his tense ears		vn escape-51.1-1 «NP V PP.initial_location»: agent=Theme to ear=Initial_Location
5	is a	past	the one sound	the beating		of his own heart	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/pg2892/27/1/