Irish Fairy Tales, Chapter I, sentence 13

There was a question and a statement in those deep eyes, and he could not understand what that question might be, nor what it was they sought to convey.

Who acts: question, chase, it · What happens: be, not understand, convey · 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 (question, chase, it), 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	2 was	expl
2	was	be	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	root	root
3	a	a	DET	Definite=Ind PronType=Art	4 question	det
4	question	question	NOUN	Number=Sing	2 was	nsubj
5	and	and	CCONJ	_	7 statement	cc
6	a	a	DET	Definite=Ind PronType=Art	7 statement	det
7	statement	statement	NOUN	Number=Sing	4 question	conj
8	in	in	ADP	_	11 eyes	case
9	those	that	DET	Number=Plur PronType=Dem	11 eyes	det
10	deep	deep	ADJ	Degree=Pos	11 eyes	amod
11	eyes	eye	NOUN	Number=Plur	7 statement	nmod
12	,	,	PUNCT	_	17 understand	punct
13	and	and	CCONJ	_	17 understand	cc
14	he	he	PRON	Case=Nom Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	17 understand	nsubj
15	could	could	AUX	VerbForm=Fin	17 understand	aux
16	not	not	PART	Polarity=Neg	17 understand	advmod
17	understand	understand	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	2 was	parataxis
18	what	what	PRON	PronType=Int	22 be	obj
19	that	that	DET	Number=Sing PronType=Dem	20 question	det
20	question	question	NOUN	Number=Sing	22 be	nsubj
21	might	might	AUX	VerbForm=Fin	22 be	aux
22	be	be	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	17 understand	ccomp
23	,	,	PUNCT	_	25 what	punct
24	nor	nor	CCONJ	Polarity=Neg	25 what	cc
25	what	what	PRON	PronType=Int	2 was	parataxis
26	it	it	PRON	Case=Nom Gender=Neut Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	29 sought	nsubj
27	was	be	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	29 sought	cop
28	they	they	PRON	Case=Nom Number=Plur Person=3 PronType=Prs	29 sought	nsubj
29	sought	seek	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	25 what	acl:relcl
30	to	to	PART	_	31 convey	mark
31	convey	convey	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	29 sought	xcomp
32	.	.	PUNCT	_	2 was	punct

Pragmatics

#	verb	tense, mood	who	where	other	roles by
1	be	past	a question and a statement in that deep eyes	there		vn exist-47.1 «NP V»: agent=Theme
2	not understand	could	chase			vn comprehend-87.2-1-1-1 «NP V how S_INF»: agent=Experiencer clause=Stimulus
3	be	might	that question			vn representation-110.1 «NP V NP»: agent=Pivot what=Theme
4	is	past	it		seek property	tree rules
5	convey not said to happen	to-infinitive				vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent

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/pg2892/33/13/