Irish Fairy Tales, Chapter VI, sentence 4

He could sit in safety among a pack that would have torn any man to pieces, and the reason was that Bran and Sceo’lan, with their three whelps, followed him about like shadows.

Who acts: boy, reason · What happens: sit, tear, be · To what, where: safety, pack

This is a sentence of «Irish Fairy Tales» by James Stephens, Chapter VI. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (boy, reason), 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	3 sit	nsubj
2	could	could	AUX	VerbForm=Fin	3 sit	aux
3	sit	sit	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	root	root
4	in	in	ADP	_	5 safety	case
5	safety	safety	NOUN	Number=Sing	3 sit	obl
6	among	among	ADP	_	8 pack	case
7	a	a	DET	Definite=Ind PronType=Art	8 pack	det
8	pack	pack	NOUN	Number=Sing	3 sit	obl
9	that	that	PRON	PronType=Rel	12 torn	nsubj:pass
10	would	would	AUX	VerbForm=Fin	12 torn	aux
11	have	have	AUX	VerbForm=Inf	12 torn	aux
12	torn	tear	VERB	Tense=Past VerbForm=Part Voice=Pass	8 pack	acl:relcl
13	any	any	DET	PronType=Ind	14 man	det
14	man	man	NOUN	Number=Sing	12 torn	obj
15	to	to	ADP	_	16 pieces	case
16	pieces	piece	NOUN	Number=Plur	14 man	nmod
17	,	,	PUNCT	_	32 followed	punct
18	and	and	CCONJ	_	32 followed	cc
19	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	20 reason	det
20	reason	reason	NOUN	Number=Sing	32 followed	nsubj:outer
21	was	be	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	32 followed	cop
22	that	that	SCONJ	_	32 followed	mark
23	Bran	Bran	PROPN	Number=Sing	32 followed	nsubj
24	and	and	CCONJ	_	25 Sceo’lan	cc
25	Sceo’lan	Sceo'lan	PROPN	Number=Sing	23 Bran	conj
26	,	,	PUNCT	_	30 whelps	punct
27	with	with	ADP	_	30 whelps	case
28	their	their	PRON	Case=Gen Number=Plur Person=3 Poss=Yes PronType=Prs	30 whelps	nmod:poss
29	three	three	NUM	NumForm=Word NumType=Card	30 whelps	nummod
30	whelps	whelp	NOUN	Number=Plur	23 Bran	conj
31	,	,	PUNCT	_	23 Bran	punct
32	followed	follow	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	3 sit	conj
33	him	he	PRON	Case=Acc Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	32 followed	obj
34	about	about	ADV	_	32 followed	advmod
35	like	like	ADP	_	36 shadows	case
36	shadows	shadow	NOUN	Number=Plur	32 followed	obl
37	.	.	PUNCT	_	3 sit	punct

Pragmatics

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	where	other	roles by
1	sit	could	boy		safety	among a pack	vn assuming_position-50 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Agent in safety=Location
2	tear	would · perfect · passive		a pack			vn break-45.1 «NP V NP ADJ»: subject=Patient man=Result
3	is	past	the reason			like shadows; about, follow property	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/pg2892/38/4/