The Orange Fairy Book, Opening, part 10, sentence 95

'This is worse than the sieve,' thought she, and was about to give up in despair when there came a rush of wings through the air, and on every twig of the birch trees which grew by the bank was perched a sparrow.

Who acts: This, worse, rush, birch trees · What happens: be, think, give up, come, grow, perch · To what, where: woman, despair, air, sparrow, twig, wings

This is a sentence of «The Orange Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Opening, part 10. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (This, worse, rush, birch trees), 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 worse	punct
2	This	this	PRON	Number=Sing PronType=Dem	4 worse	nsubj
3	is	be	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	4 worse	cop
4	worse	bad	ADJ	Degree=Cmp	10 thought	nsubj
5	than	than	ADP	_	7 sieve	case
6	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	7 sieve	det
7	sieve	sieve	NOUN	Number=Sing	4 worse	obl
8	,	,	PUNCT	_	4 worse	punct
9	'	'	PUNCT	_	4 worse	punct
10	thought	think	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	root	root
11	she	she	PRON	Case=Nom Gender=Fem Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	10 thought	obj
12	,	,	PUNCT	_	15 about	punct
13	and	and	CCONJ	_	15 about	cc
14	was	be	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	15 about	cop
15	about	about	ADJ	Degree=Pos	10 thought	conj
16	to	to	PART	_	17 give	mark
17	give	give	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	15 about	xcomp
18	up	up	ADP	_	17 give	compound:prt
19	in	in	ADP	_	20 despair	case
20	despair	despair	NOUN	Number=Sing	17 give	obl
21	when	when	ADV	PronType=Int	23 came	advmod
22	there	there	PRON	PronType=Dem	23 came	expl
23	came	come	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	17 give	advcl
24	a	a	DET	Definite=Ind PronType=Art	25 rush	det
25	rush	rush	NOUN	Number=Sing	23 came	nsubj
26	of	of	ADP	_	27 wings	case
27	wings	wing	NOUN	Number=Plur	25 rush	nmod
28	through	through	ADP	_	30 air	case
29	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	30 air	det
30	air	air	NOUN	Number=Sing	23 came	obl
31	,	,	PUNCT	_	46 perched	punct
32	and	and	CCONJ	_	46 perched	cc
33	on	on	ADP	_	35 twig	case
34	every	every	DET	PronType=Tot	35 twig	det
35	twig	twig	NOUN	Number=Sing	46 perched	obl
36	of	of	ADP	_	39 trees	case
37	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	39 trees	det
38	birch	birch	NOUN	Number=Sing	39 trees	compound
39	trees	tree	NOUN	Number=Plur	35 twig	nmod
40	which	which	PRON	PronType=Rel	41 grew	nsubj
41	grew	grow	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	39 trees	acl:relcl
42	by	by	ADP	_	44 bank	case
43	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	44 bank	det
44	bank	bank	NOUN	Number=Sing	41 grew	obl
45	was	be	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	46 perched	aux:pass
46	perched	perch	VERB	Tense=Past VerbForm=Part Voice=Pass	10 thought	conj
47	a	a	DET	Definite=Ind PronType=Art	48 sparrow	det
48	sparrow	sparrow	NOUN	Number=Sing	46 perched	obj
49	.	.	PUNCT	_	10 thought	punct

Pragmatics

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	where	other	roles by
1	is	present	This			than the sieve; bad property	tree rules
2	think speech: other	past	worse	woman			vn wish-62 «NP V NP»: agent=Pivot she=Theme
3	is	past	worse not said here			about property	tree rules
4	give up	to-infinitive	worse not said here		despair		vn resign-10.11-2 «NP V»: agent=Agent
5	come	past	a rush of wings		the air; there		vn escape-51.1-1 «NP V PP.initial_location»: agent=Theme through air=Initial_Location
6	grow	past	the birch trees			by the bank	vn appear-48.1.1 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Theme by bank=Location
7	perch	past · passive	worse not said here	a sparrow	every twig of the birch trees		vn put_spatial-9.2 «NP V NP PP.destination»: sparrow=Theme on twig=Destination
8	rush			wings			nom rush «act 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: «The Orange Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Project Gutenberg book 3027 (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/pg3027/10/95/