Irish Fairy Tales, Chapter II, sentence 47
As they toiled desolately up the rustling and whispering side of a low hill the maid chanced to look back, and when she looked back she screamed and pointed, and clung to Becfola’s arm.
Who acts: Becfola, expectation · What happens: toil, whisper, chance, look back, scream, point · To what, where: rustling, side, maid
This is a sentence of «Irish Fairy Tales» by James Stephens, Chapter II. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Becfola, expectation), 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 | As | as | SCONJ | _ | 3 toiled | mark |
| 2 | they | they | PRON | Case=Nom Number=Plur Person=3 PronType=Prs | 3 toiled | nsubj |
| 3 | toiled | toil | VERB | Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | root | root |
| 4 | desolately | desolately | ADV | _ | 3 toiled | advmod |
| 5 | up | up | ADP | _ | 7 rustling | case |
| 6 | the | the | DET | Definite=Def PronType=Art | 7 rustling | det |
| 7 | rustling | rustling | NOUN | Number=Sing | 3 toiled | obl |
| 8 | and | and | CCONJ | _ | 9 whispering | cc |
| 9 | whispering | whisper | VERB | Tense=Pres VerbForm=Part | 7 rustling | conj |
| 10 | side | side | NOUN | Number=Sing | 9 whispering | obj |
| 11 | of | of | ADP | _ | 14 hill | case |
| 12 | a | a | DET | Definite=Ind PronType=Art | 14 hill | det |
| 13 | low | low | ADJ | Degree=Pos | 14 hill | amod |
| 14 | hill | hill | NOUN | Number=Sing | 10 side | nmod |
| 15 | the | the | DET | Definite=Def PronType=Art | 16 maid | det |
| 16 | maid | maid | NOUN | Number=Sing | 14 hill | appos |
| 17 | chanced | chance | VERB | Tense=Past VerbForm=Part Voice=Pass | 16 maid | acl |
| 18 | to | to | PART | _ | 19 look | mark |
| 19 | look | look | VERB | VerbForm=Inf | 17 chanced | xcomp |
| 20 | back | back | ADV | _ | 19 look | advmod |
| 21 | , | , | PUNCT | _ | 28 screamed | punct |
| 22 | and | and | CCONJ | _ | 28 screamed | cc |
| 23 | when | when | ADV | PronType=Int | 25 looked | advmod |
| 24 | she | she | PRON | Case=Nom Gender=Fem Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs | 25 looked | nsubj |
| 25 | looked | look | VERB | Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | 28 screamed | advcl |
| 26 | back | back | ADV | _ | 25 looked | advmod |
| 27 | she | she | PRON | Case=Nom Gender=Fem Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs | 28 screamed | nsubj |
| 28 | screamed | scream | VERB | Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | 3 toiled | parataxis |
| 29 | and | and | CCONJ | _ | 30 pointed | cc |
| 30 | pointed | point | VERB | Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | 28 screamed | conj |
| 31 | , | , | PUNCT | _ | 33 clung | punct |
| 32 | and | and | CCONJ | _ | 33 clung | cc |
| 33 | clung | cling | VERB | Tense=Past VerbForm=Part Voice=Pass | 30 pointed | xcomp |
| 34 | to | to | ADP | _ | 37 arm | case |
| 35 | Becfola | Becfola | PROPN | Number=Sing | 37 arm | nmod:poss |
| 36 | ’s | 's | PART | _ | 35 Becfola | case |
| 37 | arm | arm | NOUN | Number=Sing | 33 clung | obl |
| 38 | . | . | PUNCT | _ | 3 toiled | punct |
Pragmatics
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | toil | past | Becfola | the rustling | desolately property | vn run-51.3.2 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Theme up rustling=Trajectory | |||
| 2 | whisper speech: assert | gerund | Becfola not said here | side of a low hill | vn manner_speaking-37.3 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent side=Topic | ||||
| 3 | chance | participle | the maid not said here | vn risk-94-1 «NP V S_ING»: agent=Agent clause=Theme | |||||
| 4 | look back | to-infinitive | vn stimulus_subject-30.4 «NP V PP.attribute»: agent=Stimulus | ||||||
| 5 | look back | past | expectation | vn stimulus_subject-30.4 «NP V PP.attribute»: agent=Stimulus | |||||
| 6 | scream speech: express | past | expectation | vn manner_speaking-37.3 «NP V»: agent=Agent | |||||
| 7 | point | past | expectation not said here | tree rules | |||||
| 8 | cling | participle | expectation not said here | to Becfola's arm | vn cling-22.5 «NP V PP.co-theme»: agent=Theme to arm=Co-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/pg2892/41/47/