The Orange Fairy Book, Opening, part 9, sentence 106
He fluttered slowly to the ground and paused for a few minutes under a thicket of syringas, and while he was gazing about him, there walked slowly past a flock of the same beautiful birds he had seen so many months ago.
Who acts: bird · What happens: flutter, pause, gaze, walk, see · To what, where: thicket, flock, same beautiful birds
This is a sentence of «The Orange Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Opening, part 9. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (bird), 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 | He | he | PRON | Case=Nom Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs | 2 fluttered | nsubj |
| 2 | fluttered | flutter | VERB | Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | root | root |
| 3 | slowly | slowly | ADV | _ | 2 fluttered | advmod |
| 4 | to | to | ADP | _ | 6 ground | case |
| 5 | the | the | DET | Definite=Def PronType=Art | 6 ground | det |
| 6 | ground | ground | NOUN | Number=Sing | 2 fluttered | obl |
| 7 | and | and | CCONJ | _ | 8 paused | cc |
| 8 | paused | pause | VERB | Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | 2 fluttered | conj |
| 9 | for | for | ADP | _ | 12 minutes | case |
| 10 | a | a | DET | Definite=Ind PronType=Art | 12 minutes | det |
| 11 | few | few | ADJ | Degree=Pos | 12 minutes | amod |
| 12 | minutes | minute | NOUN | Number=Plur | 8 paused | obl |
| 13 | under | under | ADP | _ | 15 thicket | case |
| 14 | a | a | DET | Definite=Ind PronType=Art | 15 thicket | det |
| 15 | thicket | thicket | NOUN | Number=Sing | 8 paused | obl |
| 16 | of | of | ADP | _ | 17 syringas | case |
| 17 | syringas | syringa | NOUN | Number=Plur | 15 thicket | nmod |
| 18 | , | , | PUNCT | _ | 23 gazing | punct |
| 19 | and | and | CCONJ | _ | 23 gazing | cc |
| 20 | while | while | SCONJ | _ | 23 gazing | mark |
| 21 | he | he | PRON | Case=Nom Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs | 23 gazing | nsubj |
| 22 | was | be | AUX | Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | 23 gazing | aux |
| 23 | gazing | gaze | VERB | Tense=Pres VerbForm=Part | 2 fluttered | advcl |
| 24 | about | about | ADP | _ | 25 him | case |
| 25 | him | he | PRON | Case=Acc Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs | 23 gazing | obl |
| 26 | , | , | PUNCT | _ | 28 walked | punct |
| 27 | there | there | ADV | PronType=Dem | 28 walked | advmod |
| 28 | walked | walk | VERB | Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | 2 fluttered | conj |
| 29 | slowly | slowly | ADV | _ | 28 walked | advmod |
| 30 | past | past | ADP | _ | 32 flock | case |
| 31 | a | a | DET | Definite=Ind PronType=Art | 32 flock | det |
| 32 | flock | flock | NOUN | Number=Sing | 28 walked | obl |
| 33 | of | of | ADP | _ | 37 birds | case |
| 34 | the | the | DET | Definite=Def PronType=Art | 37 birds | det |
| 35 | same | same | ADJ | Degree=Pos | 37 birds | amod |
| 36 | beautiful | beautiful | ADJ | Degree=Pos | 37 birds | amod |
| 37 | birds | bird | NOUN | Number=Plur | 32 flock | nmod |
| 38 | he | he | PRON | Case=Nom Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs | 40 seen | nsubj |
| 39 | had | have | AUX | Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | 40 seen | aux |
| 40 | seen | see | VERB | Tense=Past VerbForm=Part | 37 birds | acl:relcl |
| 41 | so | so | ADV | _ | 42 many | advmod |
| 42 | many | many | ADJ | Degree=Pos | 43 months | amod |
| 43 | months | month | NOUN | Number=Plur | 44 ago | obl:unmarked |
| 44 | ago | ago | ADV | _ | 40 seen | advmod |
| 45 | . | . | PUNCT | _ | 2 fluttered | punct |
Pragmatics
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | flutter | past | bird | to the ground; slowly property | vn modes_of_being_with_motion-47.3 «NP V»: agent=Theme | ||||
| 2 | pause | past | bird not said here | a thicket of syringas | minute | vn linger-53.1 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Agent under thicket=Location | |||
| 3 | gaze | past · progressive | bird | about garden | vn peer-30.3 «NP V PP.theme»: agent=Agent about he=Theme | ||||
| 4 | walk | past | bird not said here | a flock of the same beautiful birds; there | slowly property | vn run-51.3.2-2-1 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Theme past flock=Trajectory | |||
| 5 | see | past · perfect | bird | the same beautiful birds not said here | ago property | vn comprehend-87.2-1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Experiencer bird=Stimulus |
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/pg3027/9/106/