The Orange Fairy Book, Opening, part 26, sentence 75

The poor birds began to despair, when, one evening, after they had been for a wonder hunting together, they found two sisters fast asleep on their two beds.

Who acts: poor birds, birds, wonder · What happens: begin, despair, be, hunt, find · To what, where: two sisters

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 (poor birds, birds, wonder), 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	The	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	3 birds	det
2	poor	poor	ADJ	Degree=Pos	3 birds	amod
3	birds	bird	NOUN	Number=Plur	4 began	nsubj
4	began	begin	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	root	root
5	to	to	PART	_	6 despair	mark
6	despair	despair	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	4 began	xcomp
7	,	,	PUNCT	_	8 when	punct
8	when	when	ADV	PronType=Int	6 despair	advmod
9	,	,	PUNCT	_	11 evening	punct
10	one	one	NUM	NumForm=Word NumType=Card	11 evening	nummod
11	evening	evening	NOUN	Number=Sing	4 began	obl:unmarked
12	,	,	PUNCT	_	19 wonder	punct
13	after	after	ADP	_	19 wonder	case
14	they	they	PRON	Case=Nom Number=Plur Person=3 PronType=Prs	19 wonder	nsubj
15	had	have	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	19 wonder	aux
16	been	be	AUX	Tense=Past VerbForm=Part	19 wonder	cop
17	for	for	ADP	_	19 wonder	case
18	a	a	DET	Definite=Ind PronType=Art	19 wonder	det
19	wonder	wonder	NOUN	Number=Sing	4 began	parataxis
20	hunting	hunt	VERB	VerbForm=Ger	19 wonder	acl
21	together	together	ADV	_	20 hunting	advmod
22	,	,	PUNCT	_	24 found	punct
23	they	they	PRON	Case=Nom Number=Plur Person=3 PronType=Prs	24 found	nsubj
24	found	find	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	4 began	conj
25	two	two	NUM	NumForm=Word NumType=Card	26 sisters	nummod
26	sisters	sister	NOUN	Number=Plur	24 found	obj
27	fast	fast	ADV	Degree=Pos	28 asleep	advmod
28	asleep	asleep	ADJ	Degree=Pos	24 found	xcomp
29	on	on	ADP	_	32 beds	case
30	their	their	PRON	Case=Gen Number=Plur Person=3 Poss=Yes PronType=Prs	32 beds	nmod:poss
31	two	two	NUM	NumForm=Word NumType=Card	32 beds	nummod
32	beds	bed	NOUN	Number=Plur	28 asleep	obl
33	.	.	PUNCT	_	4 began	punct

Pragmatics

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	when	other	roles by
1	begin	past	the poor birds		evening		vn begin-55.1-1-1 «NP V S_INF»: agent=Agent clause=Eventuality
2	despair	to-infinitive	the poor birds not said here				vn marvel-31.3 «NP V»: agent=Experiencer
3	is	past · perfect	birds = bird		after a wonder		tree rules
4	hunt	gerund	a wonder not said here			together property	vn hunt-35.1 «NP V»: agent=Agent
5	find	past	birds = bird	two sisters		asleep property	vn discover-84 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent sister=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: «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/pg3027/26/75/