Irish Fairy Tales, Chapter III, sentence 41

The young man left them, and with many a backward look and with dragging, reluctant feet, Becfola crossed the threshold of the palace, wondering what she should say to Dermod and how she could account for an absence of three days’ duration.

Who acts: young man, Becfola · What happens: leave, drag, cross, wonder, say, account · To what, where: roofs, threshold, Dermod, duration · Speech: someone speaks here

This is a sentence of «Irish Fairy Tales» by James Stephens, Chapter III. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (young man, Becfola), 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	The	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	3 man	det
2	young	young	ADJ	Degree=Pos	3 man	amod
3	man	man	NOUN	Number=Sing	4 left	nsubj
4	left	leave	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	root	root
5	them	they	PRON	Case=Acc Number=Plur Person=3 PronType=Prs	4 left	obj
6	,	,	PUNCT	_	21 crossed	punct
7	and	and	CCONJ	_	21 crossed	cc
8	with	with	ADP	_	12 look	case
9	many	many	ADJ	Degree=Pos	12 look	nsubj
10	a	a	DET	Definite=Ind PronType=Art	12 look	det
11	backward	backward	ADJ	Degree=Pos	12 look	amod
12	look	look	NOUN	Number=Sing	21 crossed	obl
13	and	and	CCONJ	_	15 dragging	cc
14	with	with	SCONJ	_	15 dragging	mark
15	dragging	drag	VERB	VerbForm=Ger	12 look	conj
16	,	,	PUNCT	_	18 feet	punct
17	reluctant	reluctant	ADJ	Degree=Pos	18 feet	amod
18	feet	foot	NOUN	Number=Plur	12 look	conj
19	,	,	PUNCT	_	12 look	punct
20	Becfola	Becfola	PROPN	Number=Sing	21 crossed	nsubj
21	crossed	cross	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	4 left	conj
22	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	23 threshold	det
23	threshold	threshold	NOUN	Number=Sing	21 crossed	obj
24	of	of	ADP	_	26 palace	case
25	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	26 palace	det
26	palace	palace	NOUN	Number=Sing	23 threshold	nmod
27	,	,	PUNCT	_	28 wondering	punct
28	wondering	wonder	VERB	VerbForm=Ger	21 crossed	advcl
29	what	what	PRON	PronType=Int	32 say	obj
30	she	she	PRON	Case=Nom Gender=Fem Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	32 say	nsubj
31	should	should	AUX	VerbForm=Fin	32 say	aux
32	say	say	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	28 wondering	ccomp
33	to	to	ADP	_	34 Dermod	case
34	Dermod	Dermod	PROPN	Number=Sing	32 say	obl
35	and	and	CCONJ	_	39 account	cc
36	how	how	ADV	PronType=Int	39 account	advmod
37	she	she	PRON	Case=Nom Gender=Fem Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	39 account	nsubj
38	could	could	AUX	VerbForm=Fin	39 account	aux
39	account	account	NOUN	Number=Sing	34 Dermod	conj
40	for	for	ADP	_	42 absence	case
41	an	a	DET	Definite=Ind PronType=Art	42 absence	det
42	absence	absence	NOUN	Number=Sing	39 account	nmod
43	of	of	ADP	_	47 duration	case
44	three	three	NUM	NumForm=Word NumType=Card	45 days	nummod
45	days	day	NOUN	Number=Plur	47 duration	nmod:poss
46	’	's	PART	_	45 days	case
47	duration	duration	NOUN	Number=Sing	42 absence	nmod
48	.	.	PUNCT	_	4 left	punct

Pragmatics

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	other	roles by
1	leave	past	the young man	roofs = roof			vn keep-15.2 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent they=Theme
2	drag	gerund	Becfola not said here				vn search-35.2 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Agent
3	cross	past	Becfola	the threshold of the palace		with a backward look and reluctant feet	vn crane-40.3.2 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent threshold=Patient
4	wonder speech: ask	gerund	Becfola not said here				vn care-88.1-1 «NP V what S»: agent=Experiencer clause=Stimulus
5	say speech: assert	should	Becfola		Dermod and account		vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V NP PP.recipient»: agent=Agent what=Topic to dermod=Recipient
6	account	could	Becfola			for a absence of three days's duration	tree rules
7	absent			three days's duration			nom absence «state transitive»: of=patient

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.

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