The Orange Fairy Book, Opening, part 9, sentence 39

Luckily for himself the duckling could not fly, and he floundered along through the water till he could hide himself amidst some tall ferns which grew in a hollow.

Who acts: duckling, firing, tall ferns · What happens: not fly, flounder, hide, grow · To what, where: water, firing, hollow

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 (duckling, firing, tall ferns), 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	Luckily	luckily	ADV	_	8 fly	advmod
2	for	for	ADP	_	3 himself	case
3	himself	himself	PRON	Case=Acc Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs Reflex=Yes	1 Luckily	obl
4	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	5 duckling	det
5	duckling	duckling	NOUN	Number=Sing	8 fly	nsubj
6	could	could	AUX	VerbForm=Fin	8 fly	aux
7	not	not	PART	Polarity=Neg	8 fly	advmod
8	fly	fly	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	root	root
9	,	,	PUNCT	_	12 floundered	punct
10	and	and	CCONJ	_	12 floundered	cc
11	he	he	PRON	Case=Nom Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	12 floundered	nsubj
12	floundered	flounder	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	8 fly	conj
13	along	along	ADV	_	12 floundered	advmod
14	through	through	ADP	_	16 water	case
15	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	16 water	det
16	water	water	NOUN	Number=Sing	12 floundered	obl
17	till	till	SCONJ	_	20 hide	mark
18	he	he	PRON	Case=Nom Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	20 hide	nsubj
19	could	could	AUX	VerbForm=Fin	20 hide	aux
20	hide	hide	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	8 fly	advcl
21	himself	himself	PRON	Case=Acc Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs Reflex=Yes	20 hide	obj
22	amidst	amidst	ADP	_	25 ferns	case
23	some	some	DET	PronType=Ind	25 ferns	det
24	tall	tall	ADJ	Degree=Pos	25 ferns	amod
25	ferns	fern	NOUN	Number=Plur	20 hide	obl
26	which	which	PRON	PronType=Rel	27 grew	nsubj
27	grew	grow	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	25 ferns	acl:relcl
28	in	in	ADP	_	30 hollow	case
29	a	a	DET	Definite=Ind PronType=Art	30 hollow	det
30	hollow	hollow	NOUN	Number=Sing	27 grew	obl
31	.	.	PUNCT	_	8 fly	punct

Pragmatics

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	where	other	roles by
1	not fly	could	the duckling			luckily property	vn spatial_configuration-47.6-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme
2	flounder	past	firing		the water	along property	tree rules
3	hide	could	firing	firing		amidst some tall ferns	vn concealment-16-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent himself=Patient
4	grow	past	some tall ferns		a hollow		vn appear-48.1.1 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Theme in hollow=Location

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/pg3027/9/39/