The Orange Fairy Book, Opening, part 26, sentence 110

Quick as lightning the wives cut the deer- thongs which bound them; but the poor birds were too weak from pain and starvation to do more than utter soft sounds of joy.

Who acts: wives, deer thongs, poor birds · What happens: cut, bound, be, do · To what, where: deer thongs, thongs, pain, more

This is a sentence of «The Orange Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Opening, part 26. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (wives, deer thongs, poor birds), 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	Quick	quick	ADJ	Degree=Pos	3 lightning	case
2	as	as	ADP	_	1 Quick	fixed
3	lightning	lightning	NOUN	Number=Sing	6 cut	obl
4	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	5 wives	det
5	wives	wife	NOUN	Number=Plur	6 cut	nsubj
6	cut	cut	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	root	root
7	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	10 thongs	det
8	deer	deer	NOUN	Number=Sing	10 thongs	compound
9	-	-	PUNCT	_	8 deer	punct
10	thongs	thong	NOUN	Number=Plur	6 cut	obj
11	which	which	PRON	PronType=Rel	12 bound	nsubj
12	bound	bound	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	10 thongs	acl:relcl
13	them	they	PRON	Case=Acc Number=Plur Person=3 PronType=Prs	12 bound	obj
14	;	;	PUNCT	_	21 weak	punct
15	but	but	CCONJ	_	21 weak	cc
16	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	18 birds	det
17	poor	poor	ADJ	Degree=Pos	18 birds	amod
18	birds	bird	NOUN	Number=Plur	21 weak	nsubj
19	were	be	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	21 weak	cop
20	too	too	ADV	_	21 weak	advmod
21	weak	weak	ADJ	Degree=Pos	6 cut	conj
22	from	from	ADP	_	23 pain	case
23	pain	pain	NOUN	Number=Sing	21 weak	obl
24	and	and	CCONJ	_	25 starvation	cc
25	starvation	starvation	NOUN	Number=Sing	23 pain	conj
26	to	to	PART	_	27 do	mark
27	do	do	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	25 starvation	acl
28	more	more	ADJ	Degree=Cmp	27 do	obj
29	than	than	ADP	_	32 sounds	case
30	utter	utter	ADJ	Degree=Pos	32 sounds	amod
31	soft	soft	ADJ	Degree=Pos	32 sounds	amod
32	sounds	sound	NOUN	Number=Plur	28 more	obl
33	of	of	ADP	_	34 joy	case
34	joy	joy	NOUN	Number=Sing	32 sounds	nmod
35	.	.	PUNCT	_	6 cut	punct

Pragmatics

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	where	other	roles by
1	cut	past	the wives	the deer thongs		quick lightning	vn build-26.1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent thong=Product
2	bound	present	the deer thongs	thongs = thong			vn run-51.3.2 «PP.location V NP»: agent=Initial_Location they=Theme
3	is	past	the poor birds		pain and starvation	weak property	tree rules
4	do	to-infinitive	the poor birds not said here	more			vn act-114-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent more=Eventuality

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/pg3027/26/110/