Irish Fairy Tales, Chapter IV, sentence 2

Their fists seemed to grow heavy as lead, and went dingle-dangle at the ends of their arms; their legs became as light as straws and began to bend in and out; their necks became too delicate to hold anything up, so that their heads wibbled and wobbled from side to side.

Who acts: fists, legs, necks, heads · What happens: seem, grow, go, become, begin, bend · To what, where: dingle dangle, ends, anything, side

This is a sentence of «Irish Fairy Tales» by James Stephens, Chapter IV. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (fists, legs, necks, heads), 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	Their	their	PRON	Case=Gen Number=Plur Person=3 Poss=Yes PronType=Prs	2 fists	nmod:poss
2	fists	fist	NOUN	Number=Plur	3 seemed	nsubj
3	seemed	seem	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	root	root
4	to	to	PART	_	5 grow	mark
5	grow	grow	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	3 seemed	xcomp
6	heavy	heavy	ADJ	Degree=Pos	8 lead	case
7	as	as	ADP	_	6 heavy	fixed
8	lead	lead	NOUN	Number=Sing	5 grow	obl
9	,	,	PUNCT	_	11 went	punct
10	and	and	CCONJ	_	11 went	cc
11	went	go	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	3 seemed	conj
12	dingle	dingle	NOUN	Number=Sing	14 dangle	compound
13	-	-	PUNCT	_	12 dingle	punct
14	dangle	dangle	NOUN	Number=Sing	11 went	obj
15	at	at	ADP	_	17 ends	case
16	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	17 ends	det
17	ends	end	NOUN	Number=Plur	11 went	obl
18	of	of	ADP	_	20 arms	case
19	their	their	PRON	Case=Gen Number=Plur Person=3 Poss=Yes PronType=Prs	20 arms	nmod:poss
20	arms	arm	NOUN	Number=Plur	17 ends	nmod
21	;	;	PUNCT	_	24 became	punct
22	their	their	PRON	Case=Gen Number=Plur Person=3 Poss=Yes PronType=Prs	23 legs	nmod:poss
23	legs	leg	NOUN	Number=Plur	24 became	nsubj
24	became	become	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	3 seemed	parataxis
25	as	as	ADV	_	26 light	advmod
26	light	light	ADJ	Degree=Pos	24 became	xcomp
27	as	as	ADP	_	28 straws	case
28	straws	straw	NOUN	Number=Plur	26 light	obl
29	and	and	CCONJ	_	30 began	cc
30	began	begin	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	24 became	conj
31	to	to	PART	_	32 bend	mark
32	bend	bend	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	30 began	xcomp
33	in	in	ADV	_	32 bend	advmod
34	and	and	CCONJ	_	35 out	cc
35	out	out	ADV	_	33 in	conj
36	;	;	PUNCT	_	39 became	punct
37	their	their	PRON	Case=Gen Number=Plur Person=3 Poss=Yes PronType=Prs	38 necks	nmod:poss
38	necks	neck	NOUN	Number=Plur	39 became	nsubj
39	became	become	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	24 became	conj
40	too	too	ADV	_	41 delicate	advmod
41	delicate	delicate	ADJ	Degree=Pos	39 became	xcomp
42	to	to	PART	_	43 hold	mark
43	hold	hold	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	41 delicate	xcomp
44	anything	anything	PRON	Number=Sing PronType=Ind	43 hold	obj
45	up	up	ADP	_	43 hold	compound:prt
46	,	,	PUNCT	_	51 wibbled	punct
47	so	so	SCONJ	ExtPos=SCONJ	51 wibbled	mark
48	that	that	SCONJ	_	47 so	fixed
49	their	their	PRON	Case=Gen Number=Plur Person=3 Poss=Yes PronType=Prs	50 heads	nmod:poss
50	heads	head	NOUN	Number=Plur	51 wibbled	nsubj
51	wibbled	wibbl	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	39 became	conj
52	and	and	CCONJ	_	53 wobbled	cc
53	wobbled	wobble	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	39 became	conj
54	from	from	ADP	_	55 side	case
55	side	side	NOUN	Number=Sing	53 wobbled	obl
56	to	to	ADP	_	57 side	case
57	side	side	NOUN	Number=Sing	53 wobbled	obl
58	.	.	PUNCT	_	3 seemed	punct

Pragmatics

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	seem	past	heroes's fists					vn seem-109-1-1-1 «NP V S_INF»: agent=Theme clause=Attribute
2	grow	to-infinitive	heroes's fists not said here				heavy lead	vn appear-48.1.1 «NP V»: agent=Theme
3	go	past	heroes's fists not said here	dingle dangle		at the ends of heroes's arms		vn meander-47.7 «PP.location V NP»: agent=Location dangle=Theme
4	become	past	heroes's legs				light property	vn become-109.1-1-1 «NP V PP.attribute»: agent=Patient
5	begin	past	heroes's legs not said here					vn begin-55.1-1-1 «NP V S_INF»: agent=Agent clause=Eventuality
6	bend	to-infinitive	heroes's legs not said here					vn assuming_position-50 «NP V»: agent=Agent
7	become	past	heroes's necks				delicate property	vn become-109.1-1-1 «NP V PP.attribute»: agent=Patient
8	hold up	to-infinitive	heroes's necks not said here	anything				vn support-15.3-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Pivot anything=Theme
9	wibbl	past	heroes's heads					tree rules
10	wobble	past	heroes's necks not said here		side		to side	vn modes_of_being_with_motion-47.3 «NP V»: agent=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/pg2892/59/2/