The Orange Fairy Book, Opening, part 17, sentence 129

But the jackal had been very cunning, and had trotted backwards and forwards and in and out, so that it was very difficult to know which track he had really followed.

Who acts: jackal, track · What happens: be, trot, know, follow · To what, where: track, Jackal

This is a sentence of «The Orange Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Opening, part 17. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (jackal, track), 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	But	but	CCONJ	_	7 cunning	cc
2	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	3 jackal	det
3	jackal	jackal	NOUN	Number=Sing	7 cunning	nsubj
4	had	have	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	7 cunning	aux
5	been	be	AUX	Tense=Past VerbForm=Part	7 cunning	cop
6	very	very	ADV	_	7 cunning	advmod
7	cunning	cunning	ADJ	Degree=Pos	root	root
8	,	,	PUNCT	_	11 trotted	punct
9	and	and	CCONJ	_	11 trotted	cc
10	had	have	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	11 trotted	aux
11	trotted	trot	VERB	Tense=Past VerbForm=Part	7 cunning	parataxis
12	backwards	backwards	ADV	_	11 trotted	advmod
13	and	and	CCONJ	_	14 forwards	cc
14	forwards	forwards	ADV	_	11 trotted	advmod
15	and	and	CCONJ	_	16 in	cc
16	in	in	ADV	_	14 forwards	conj
17	and	and	CCONJ	_	18 out	cc
18	out	out	ADV	_	14 forwards	conj
19	,	,	PUNCT	_	25 difficult	punct
20	so	so	ADV	_	25 difficult	advmod
21	that	that	SCONJ	_	25 difficult	mark
22	it	it	PRON	Case=Nom Gender=Neut Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	25 difficult	expl
23	was	be	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	25 difficult	cop
24	very	very	ADV	_	25 difficult	advmod
25	difficult	difficult	ADJ	Degree=Pos	11 trotted	conj
26	to	to	PART	_	27 know	mark
27	know	know	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	25 difficult	csubj
28	which	which	DET	PronType=Int	29 track	det
29	track	track	NOUN	Number=Sing	27 know	obj
30	he	he	PRON	Case=Nom Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	33 followed	nsubj:pass
31	had	have	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	33 followed	aux
32	really	really	ADV	_	33 followed	advmod
33	followed	follow	VERB	Tense=Past VerbForm=Part Voice=Pass	29 track	acl:relcl
34	.	.	PUNCT	_	7 cunning	punct

Pragmatics

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	other	roles by
1	is	past · perfect	the jackal		cunning property	tree rules
2	trot	past · perfect			backwards, forwards property	vn run-51.3.2-2 «NP V»: agent=Theme
3	is	past			difficult property	tree rules
4	know	to-infinitive		which track		vn comprehend-87.2-1-1-1 «NP V NP PP.attribute»: agent=Experiencer track=Stimulus
5	follow	past · perfect · passive	which track not said here	Jackal		vn chase-51.6 «NP V NP»: subject=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: «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/pg3027/17/129/