The Orange Fairy Book, Opening, part 29, sentence 61

It was true; a cloud appeared to pass over the sun, for between them and it they could all discern dimly a huge body half a mile long approaching nearer and nearer.

Who acts: spot, cloud · What happens: be, appear, pass, discern, approach · To what, where: sun, huge body

This is a sentence of «The Orange Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Opening, part 29. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (spot, cloud), 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	It	it	PRON	Case=Nom Gender=Neut Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	3 true	nsubj
2	was	be	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	3 true	cop
3	true	true	ADJ	Degree=Pos	root	root
4	;	;	PUNCT	_	7 appeared	punct
5	a	a	DET	Definite=Ind PronType=Art	6 cloud	det
6	cloud	cloud	NOUN	Number=Sing	7 appeared	nsubj
7	appeared	appear	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	3 true	parataxis
8	to	to	PART	_	9 pass	mark
9	pass	pass	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	7 appeared	xcomp
10	over	over	ADP	_	12 sun	case
11	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	12 sun	det
12	sun	sun	NOUN	Number=Sing	9 pass	obl
13	,	,	PUNCT	_	16 them	punct
14	for	for	ADP	_	16 them	case
15	between	between	ADP	_	16 them	case
16	them	they	PRON	Case=Acc Number=Plur Person=3 PronType=Prs	7 appeared	obl
17	and	and	CCONJ	_	22 discern	cc
18	it	it	PRON	Case=Nom Gender=Neut Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	22 discern	nsubj
19	they	they	PRON	Case=Nom Number=Plur Person=3 PronType=Prs	22 discern	nsubj
20	could	could	AUX	VerbForm=Fin	22 discern	aux
21	all	all	ADV	_	22 discern	advmod
22	discern	discern	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	7 appeared	conj
23	dimly	dimly	ADV	_	22 discern	advmod
24	a	a	DET	Definite=Ind PronType=Art	26 body	det
25	huge	huge	ADJ	Degree=Pos	26 body	amod
26	body	body	NOUN	Number=Sing	22 discern	obj
27	half	half	DET	NumForm=Word NumType=Frac PronType=Ind	29 mile	det:predet
28	a	a	DET	Definite=Ind PronType=Art	29 mile	det
29	mile	mile	NOUN	Number=Sing	30 long	obl:unmarked
30	long	long	ADJ	Degree=Pos	31 approaching	amod
31	approaching	approach	VERB	Tense=Pres VerbForm=Part	22 discern	advcl
32	nearer	near	ADJ	Degree=Cmp	31 approaching	xcomp
33	and	and	CCONJ	_	34 nearer	cc
34	nearer	near	ADJ	Degree=Cmp	32 nearer	conj
35	.	.	PUNCT	_	3 true	punct

Pragmatics

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	where	other	roles by
1	is	past	spot			true property	tree rules
2	appear	past	a cloud			for tears = tear	vn seem-109-1-1-1 «NP V S_INF»: agent=Theme clause=Attribute
3	pass	to-infinitive	a cloud not said here		the sun		vn occur-48.3-1 «NP V PP»: agent=Theme over sun=Location
4	discern	could	spot	a huge body		all, dimly property	vn see-30.1-1 «NP V S»: agent=Experiencer body=Stimulus
5	approach	gerund	spot not said here			near property	vn escape-51.1-1 «NP V»: agent=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/pg3027/29/61/