Irish Fairy Tales, Chapter VII. “It is not nice of you to laugh at us,” said Fiachna Finn, sentence 1
“Who could help laughing at a king hunkering on a branch and his army roosting around him like hens?” said the stranger.
Who acts: king, army, stranger · What happens: help, laugh, hunker, roost, say · To what, where: branch · Speech: someone speaks here
This is a sentence of «Irish Fairy Tales» by James Stephens, Chapter VII. “It is not nice of you to laugh at us,” said Fiachna Finn. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (king, army, stranger), 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 help | punct |
| 2 | Who | who | PRON | PronType=Rel | 4 help | nsubj |
| 3 | could | could | AUX | VerbForm=Fin | 4 help | aux |
| 4 | help | help | VERB | VerbForm=Inf | 23 said | ccomp |
| 5 | laughing | laugh | VERB | VerbForm=Ger | 4 help | xcomp |
| 6 | at | at | ADP | _ | 8 king | case |
| 7 | a | a | DET | Definite=Ind PronType=Art | 8 king | det |
| 8 | king | king | NOUN | Number=Sing | 5 laughing | obl |
| 9 | hunkering | hunker | VERB | VerbForm=Ger | 8 king | acl |
| 10 | on | on | ADP | _ | 12 branch | case |
| 11 | a | a | DET | Definite=Ind PronType=Art | 12 branch | det |
| 12 | branch | branch | NOUN | Number=Sing | 9 hunkering | obl |
| 13 | and | and | CCONJ | _ | 15 army | cc |
| 14 | his | his | PRON | Case=Gen Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 Poss=Yes PronType=Prs | 15 army | nmod:poss |
| 15 | army | army | NOUN | Number=Sing | 8 king | conj |
| 16 | roosting | roost | VERB | VerbForm=Ger | 15 army | acl |
| 17 | around | around | ADP | _ | 18 him | case |
| 18 | him | he | PRON | Case=Acc Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs | 16 roosting | obl |
| 19 | like | like | ADP | _ | 20 hens | case |
| 20 | hens | hen | NOUN | Number=Plur | 16 roosting | obl |
| 21 | ? | ? | PUNCT | _ | 4 help | punct |
| 22 | ” | " | PUNCT | _ | 4 help | punct |
| 23 | said | say | VERB | Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | root | root |
| 24 | the | the | DET | Definite=Def PronType=Art | 25 stranger | det |
| 25 | stranger | stranger | NOUN | Number=Sing | 23 said | nsubj |
| 26 | . | . | PUNCT | _ | 23 said | punct |
Pragmatics
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | help in a quote | could | vn help-72.1-1-1 «NP V NP S_INF»: agent=Agent clause=Theme | ||||||
| 2 | laugh in a quote | gerund | at a king and his army | vn nonverbal_expression-40.2 «NP V»: agent=Agent | |||||
| 3 | hunker in a quote | gerund | a king and his army not said here | a branch | tree rules | ||||
| 4 | roost in a quote | gerund | his army not said here | around him = he; like hens | vn spatial_configuration-47.6 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Theme around he=Location | ||||
| 5 | say speech: ask | past | the stranger | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent clause=Topic |
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/pg2892/78/1/