The Brown Fairy Book, The Brown Fairy Book, part 1, sentence 10

But when they grow up to be big boys and girls, they are cruelly cut about with stone knives and frightened with sham bogies all for their good their parents say and I think they would rather go to school, if they had their choice, and take their chance of being birched and bullied.

Who acts: snakes, good parents, I · What happens: grow up, be, cut about, frighten, say, think · To what, where: big boys, snakes, school, choice, chance · Speech: someone speaks here

This is a sentence of «The Brown Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Brown Fairy Book, part 1. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (snakes, good parents, I), 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	But	but	CCONJ	_	16 cut	cc
2	when	when	ADV	PronType=Int	4 grow	advmod
3	they	they	PRON	Case=Nom Number=Plur Person=3 PronType=Prs	4 grow	nsubj
4	grow	grow	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	16 cut	advcl
5	up	up	ADP	_	4 grow	compound:prt
6	to	to	PART	_	9 boys	mark
7	be	be	AUX	VerbForm=Inf	9 boys	cop
8	big	big	ADJ	Degree=Pos	9 boys	amod
9	boys	boy	NOUN	Number=Plur	4 grow	advcl
10	and	and	CCONJ	_	11 girls	cc
11	girls	girl	NOUN	Number=Plur	9 boys	conj
12	,	,	PUNCT	_	4 grow	punct
13	they	they	PRON	Case=Nom Number=Plur Person=3 PronType=Prs	16 cut	nsubj:pass
14	are	be	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	16 cut	aux:pass
15	cruelly	cruelly	ADV	_	16 cut	advmod
16	cut	cut	VERB	Tense=Past VerbForm=Part Voice=Pass	root	root
17	about	about	ADV	_	16 cut	advmod
18	with	with	ADP	_	20 knives	case
19	stone	stone	NOUN	Number=Sing	20 knives	compound
20	knives	knife	NOUN	Number=Plur	16 cut	obl
21	and	and	CCONJ	_	22 frightened	cc
22	frightened	frighten	VERB	Tense=Past VerbForm=Part Voice=Pass	16 cut	conj
23	with	with	ADP	_	25 bogies	case
24	sham	sham	NOUN	Number=Sing	25 bogies	compound
25	bogies	bogie	NOUN	Number=Plur	22 frightened	obl
26	all	all	ADV	_	32 say	advmod
27	for	for	SCONJ	_	32 say	mark
28	their	their	PRON	Case=Gen Number=Plur Person=3 Poss=Yes PronType=Prs	31 parents	nmod:poss
29	good	good	ADJ	Degree=Pos	31 parents	amod
30	their	their	PRON	Case=Gen Number=Plur Person=3 Poss=Yes PronType=Prs	31 parents	nmod:poss
31	parents	parent	NOUN	Number=Plur	32 say	nsubj
32	say	say	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	22 frightened	advcl
33	and	and	CCONJ	_	35 think	cc
34	I	I	PRON	Case=Nom Number=Sing Person=1 PronType=Prs	35 think	nsubj
35	think	think	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=1 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	32 say	conj
36	they	they	PRON	Case=Nom Number=Plur Person=3 PronType=Prs	39 go	nsubj
37	would	would	AUX	VerbForm=Fin	39 go	aux
38	rather	rather	ADV	_	39 go	advmod
39	go	go	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	35 think	ccomp
40	to	to	ADP	_	41 school	case
41	school	school	NOUN	Number=Sing	39 go	obl
42	,	,	PUNCT	_	45 had	punct
43	if	if	SCONJ	_	45 had	mark
44	they	they	PRON	Case=Nom Number=Plur Person=3 PronType=Prs	45 had	nsubj
45	had	have	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	39 go	parataxis
46	their	their	PRON	Case=Gen Number=Plur Person=3 Poss=Yes PronType=Prs	47 choice	nmod:poss
47	choice	choice	NOUN	Number=Sing	45 had	obj
48	,	,	PUNCT	_	50 take	punct
49	and	and	CCONJ	_	50 take	cc
50	take	take	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	32 say	conj
51	their	their	PRON	Case=Gen Number=Plur Person=3 Poss=Yes PronType=Prs	52 chance	nmod:poss
52	chance	chance	NOUN	Number=Sing	50 take	obj
53	of	of	SCONJ	_	55 birched	mark
54	being	be	AUX	Tense=Pres VerbForm=Part	55 birched	aux:pass
55	birched	birch	VERB	Tense=Past VerbForm=Part Voice=Pass	52 chance	acl
56	and	and	CCONJ	_	57 bullied	cc
57	bullied	bully	VERB	Tense=Past VerbForm=Part Voice=Pass	55 birched	conj
58	.	.	PUNCT	_	16 cut	punct

Pragmatics

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	where	other	roles by
1	grow up	present	snakes = snake				vn appear-48.1.1 «NP V»: agent=Theme
2	is a	to-infinitive	snakes = snake not said here	big boys and girls			tree rules
3	cut about	present · passive		snakes = snake		with stone knives; about, cruelly property	vn cut-21.1-1 «NP V NP»: subject=Patient with knife=Instrument
4	frighten	participle				with sham bogies	vn amuse-31.1 «NP V ADV-Middle»: agent=Experiencer
5	say speech: assert	present	snakes's good parents			all property	vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent
6	think speech: other	present	I				vn consider-29.9-2 «NP V how S»: agent=Agent clause=Theme
7	go	would	snakes = snake		school		vn escape-51.1-1 «NP V PP.initial_location»: agent=Theme to school=Initial_Location
8	have a condition, not said to happen	past	snakes = snake	snakes's choice			vn birth-28.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent choice=Patient
9	take	infinitive	snakes's good parents not said here	snakes's chance			vn bring-11.3 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent chance=Theme
10	birch	gerund · passive		snakes's chance not said here			vn spank-18.3 «NP V NP»
11	bully	participle					vn captain-29.8-1 «NP V PP.beneficiary»: agent=Agent
12	chance		snakes = snake				nom chance «state intransitive»: poss=agent

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 Brown Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Project Gutenberg book 3282 (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/pg3282/1/10/