Irish Fairy Tales, Chapter III, sentence 3
“What in the name of the devil is this thing?” he asked of Fionn.
Who acts: devil · What happens: be, ask, name · To what, where: thing, name, devil · 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 (devil), 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 | “ | " | PUNCT | _ | 11 thing | punct |
| 2 | What | what | PRON | PronType=Int | 11 thing | nsubj |
| 3 | in | in | ADP | _ | 5 name | case |
| 4 | the | the | DET | Definite=Def PronType=Art | 5 name | det |
| 5 | name | name | NOUN | Number=Sing | 11 thing | obl |
| 6 | of | of | ADP | _ | 8 devil | case |
| 7 | the | the | DET | Definite=Def PronType=Art | 8 devil | det |
| 8 | devil | devil | NOUN | Number=Sing | 5 name | nmod |
| 9 | is | be | AUX | Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin | 11 thing | cop |
| 10 | this | this | DET | Number=Sing PronType=Dem | 11 thing | det |
| 11 | thing | thing | NOUN | Number=Sing | 15 asked | ccomp |
| 12 | ? | ? | PUNCT | _ | 11 thing | punct |
| 13 | ” | " | PUNCT | _ | 11 thing | punct |
| 14 | he | he | PRON | Case=Nom Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs | 15 asked | nsubj |
| 15 | asked | ask | VERB | Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | root | root |
| 16 | of | of | ADP | _ | 17 Fionn | case |
| 17 | Fionn | Fionn | PROPN | Number=Sing | 15 asked | obl |
| 18 | . | . | PUNCT | _ | 15 asked | punct |
Pragmatics
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | is a in a quote | present | this thing | the name of the devil | tree rules | ||||
| 2 | ask speech: ask | past | devil | of Fionn | vn inquire-37.1.2 «NP V PP.recipient how S»: agent=Agent of fionn=Recipient | ||||
| 3 | name in a quote | the devil | nom name «communication 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.
This page in Markdown → https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg2892/50/3/