Irish Fairy Tales, Chapter VII, sentence 34

“We would prefer to kill a cow or a thousand cows rather than harm this young prince,” said Conn, “but if we spare the boy will these evils return?”

Who acts: We, Conn, evils · What happens: prefer, kill, harm, say, spare, return · To what, where: cow, young prince, boy · Speech: someone speaks here

This is a sentence of «Irish Fairy Tales» by James Stephens, Chapter VII. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (We, Conn, evils), 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	_	4 prefer	punct
2	We	we	PRON	Case=Nom Number=Plur Person=1 PronType=Prs	4 prefer	nsubj
3	would	would	AUX	VerbForm=Fin	4 prefer	aux
4	prefer	prefer	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	21 said	ccomp
5	to	to	PART	_	6 kill	mark
6	kill	kill	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	4 prefer	xcomp
7	a	a	DET	Definite=Ind PronType=Art	8 cow	det
8	cow	cow	NOUN	Number=Sing	6 kill	obj
9	or	or	CCONJ	_	12 cows	cc
10	a	a	DET	Definite=Ind PronType=Art	12 cows	det
11	thousand	thousand	NUM	NumForm=Word NumType=Card	12 cows	nummod
12	cows	cow	NOUN	Number=Plur	8 cow	conj
13	rather	rather	ADV	ExtPos=CCONJ	15 harm	cc
14	than	than	ADP	_	13 rather	fixed
15	harm	harm	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	6 kill	conj
16	this	this	DET	Number=Sing PronType=Dem	18 prince	det
17	young	young	ADJ	Degree=Pos	18 prince	amod
18	prince	prince	NOUN	Number=Sing	15 harm	obj
19	,	,	PUNCT	_	4 prefer	punct
20	”	"	PUNCT	_	4 prefer	punct
21	said	say	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	root	root
22	Conn	Conn	PROPN	Number=Sing	21 said	nsubj
23	,	,	PUNCT	_	34 return	punct
24	“	"	PUNCT	_	34 return	punct
25	but	but	CCONJ	_	34 return	cc
26	if	if	SCONJ	_	28 spare	mark
27	we	we	PRON	Case=Nom Number=Plur Person=1 PronType=Prs	28 spare	nsubj
28	spare	spare	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=1 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	34 return	advcl
29	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	30 boy	det
30	boy	boy	NOUN	Number=Sing	28 spare	obj
31	will	will	AUX	VerbForm=Fin	34 return	aux
32	these	this	DET	Number=Plur PronType=Dem	33 evils	det
33	evils	evil	NOUN	Number=Plur	34 return	nsubj
34	return	return	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	21 said	ccomp
35	?	?	PUNCT	_	34 return	punct
36	”	"	PUNCT	_	34 return	punct

Pragmatics

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	roles by
1	prefer in a quote	would	We		vn want-32.1-1-1 «NP V NP S_INF»: agent=Pivot clause=Theme
2	kill not said to happen, in a quote	to-infinitive	We not said here	a cow or a thousand cows	vn remove-10.1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent cow=Theme
3	harm in a quote	infinitive	We not said here	this young prince	vn amuse-31.1 «NP V NP»: agent=Stimulus prince=Experiencer
4	say speech: ask	past	Conn		vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent clause=Topic
5	spare a condition, not said to happen, in a quote	present	we	the boy	vn bill-54.5 «NP V NP NP.asset»: agent=Agent boy=Asset
6	return in a quote	future	this evils		vn escape-51.1-1 «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/pg2892/68/34/