Irish Fairy Tales, Chapter V. “Tell on, my love,” Finnian murmured, sentence 5

They stole with silken pad behind my back and snarled when I faced them; the long, grey wolves with hanging tongues and staring eyes chased me to my cleft rock; there was no creature so weak but it might hunt me, there was no creature so timid but it might outface me.

Who acts: creatures, I, long grey wolves, rock, creature · What happens: steal, snarl, face, stare, chase, hunt · To what, where: creatures, me, cleft rock

This is a sentence of «Irish Fairy Tales» by James Stephens, Chapter V. “Tell on, my love,” Finnian murmured. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (creatures, I, long grey wolves, rock), 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	They	they	PRON	Case=Nom Number=Plur Person=3 PronType=Prs	2 stole	nsubj
2	stole	steal	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	root	root
3	with	with	ADP	_	5 pad	case
4	silken	silken	ADJ	Degree=Pos	5 pad	amod
5	pad	pad	NOUN	Number=Sing	2 stole	obl
6	behind	behind	ADP	_	8 back	case
7	my	my	PRON	Case=Gen Number=Sing Person=1 Poss=Yes PronType=Prs	8 back	nmod:poss
8	back	back	NOUN	Number=Sing	5 pad	nmod
9	and	and	CCONJ	_	10 snarled	cc
10	snarled	snarl	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	2 stole	conj
11	when	when	ADV	PronType=Int	13 faced	advmod
12	I	I	PRON	Case=Nom Number=Sing Person=1 PronType=Prs	13 faced	nsubj
13	faced	face	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=1 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	10 snarled	advcl
14	them	they	PRON	Case=Acc Number=Plur Person=3 PronType=Prs	13 faced	obj
15	;	;	PUNCT	_	27 chased	punct
16	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	20 wolves	det
17	long	long	ADJ	Degree=Pos	20 wolves	amod
18	,	,	PUNCT	_	17 long	punct
19	grey	grey	ADJ	Degree=Pos	20 wolves	amod
20	wolves	wolf	NOUN	Number=Plur	27 chased	nsubj
21	with	with	ADP	_	23 tongues	case
22	hanging	hanging	NOUN	Number=Sing	23 tongues	compound
23	tongues	tongue	NOUN	Number=Plur	20 wolves	nmod
24	and	and	CCONJ	_	26 eyes	cc
25	staring	stare	VERB	VerbForm=Ger	26 eyes	amod
26	eyes	eye	NOUN	Number=Plur	23 tongues	conj
27	chased	chase	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	2 stole	conj
28	me	I	PRON	Case=Acc Number=Sing Person=1 PronType=Prs	27 chased	obj
29	to	to	ADP	_	32 rock	case
30	my	my	PRON	Case=Gen Number=Sing Person=1 Poss=Yes PronType=Prs	32 rock	nmod:poss
31	cleft	cleft	ADJ	Degree=Pos	32 rock	amod
32	rock	rock	NOUN	Number=Sing	27 chased	obl
33	;	;	PUNCT	_	35 was	punct
34	there	there	PRON	PronType=Dem	35 was	expl
35	was	be	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	51 timid	cop
36	no	no	DET	PronType=Neg	37 creature	det
37	creature	creature	NOUN	Number=Sing	51 timid	nsubj
38	so	so	ADV	_	39 weak	advmod
39	weak	weak	ADJ	Degree=Pos	37 creature	amod
40	but	but	CCONJ	_	43 hunt	cc
41	it	it	PRON	Case=Nom Gender=Neut Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	43 hunt	nsubj
42	might	might	AUX	VerbForm=Fin	43 hunt	aux
43	hunt	hunt	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	39 weak	conj
44	me	I	PRON	Case=Acc Number=Sing Person=1 PronType=Prs	43 hunt	obj
45	,	,	PUNCT	_	47 was	punct
46	there	there	PRON	PronType=Dem	47 was	expl
47	was	be	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	51 timid	cop
48	no	no	DET	PronType=Neg	49 creature	det
49	creature	creature	NOUN	Number=Sing	47 was	nsubj
50	so	so	ADV	_	51 timid	advmod
51	timid	timid	ADJ	Degree=Pos	2 stole	parataxis
52	but	but	CCONJ	_	55 outface	cc
53	it	it	PRON	Case=Nom Gender=Neut Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	55 outface	nsubj
54	might	might	AUX	VerbForm=Fin	55 outface	aux
55	outface	outface	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	51 timid	conj
56	me	I	PRON	Case=Acc Number=Sing Person=1 PronType=Prs	55 outface	obj
57	.	.	PUNCT	_	2 stole	punct

Pragmatics

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	where	other	roles by
1	steal	past	creatures = creature			with silken pad behind my back	vn appear-48.1.1 «NP V»: agent=Theme
2	snarl	past	creatures = creature not said here				vn animal_sounds-38 «NP V»: agent=Agent
3	face	past	I	creatures = creature			vn fill-9.8-1 «NP V NP.destination»: agent=Agent they=Destination
4	stare	gerund					vn peer-30.3 «NP V PP.theme»: agent=Agent
5	chase	past	the long grey wolves with hanging tongues and staring eyes	me	my cleft rock		vn chase-51.6 «NP V NP PP.location»: agent=Agent i=Theme to rock=Trajectory
6	hunt	might	rock	me			vn hunt-35.1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent i=Theme
7	is	past	no creature			timid property	tree rules
8	outface	might	rock	me			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/pg2892/6/5/