The Brown Fairy Book, The Brown Fairy Book, part 1, sentence 72
He was asked the riddle and could not give the true answer; and his head was cut off and hung upon the battlements.
What happens: ask, not give, cut off, hang · To what, where: Quimus, true answer, head, battlements
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: 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 | 3 asked | nsubj |
| 2 | was | be | AUX | Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | 3 asked | aux:pass |
| 3 | asked | ask | VERB | Tense=Past VerbForm=Part Voice=Pass | root | root |
| 4 | the | the | DET | Definite=Def PronType=Art | 5 riddle | det |
| 5 | riddle | riddle | NOUN | Number=Sing | 3 asked | obj |
| 6 | and | and | CCONJ | _ | 9 give | cc |
| 7 | could | could | AUX | VerbForm=Fin | 9 give | aux |
| 8 | not | not | PART | Polarity=Neg | 9 give | advmod |
| 9 | give | give | VERB | VerbForm=Inf | 3 asked | conj |
| 10 | the | the | DET | Definite=Def PronType=Art | 12 answer | det |
| 11 | true | true | ADJ | Degree=Pos | 12 answer | amod |
| 12 | answer | answer | NOUN | Number=Sing | 9 give | obj |
| 13 | ; | ; | PUNCT | _ | 18 cut | punct |
| 14 | and | and | CCONJ | _ | 18 cut | cc |
| 15 | his | his | PRON | Case=Gen Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 Poss=Yes PronType=Prs | 16 head | nmod:poss |
| 16 | head | head | NOUN | Number=Sing | 18 cut | nsubj:pass |
| 17 | was | be | AUX | Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | 18 cut | aux:pass |
| 18 | cut | cut | VERB | Tense=Past VerbForm=Part Voice=Pass | 3 asked | parataxis |
| 19 | off | off | ADP | _ | 18 cut | compound:prt |
| 20 | and | and | CCONJ | _ | 21 hung | cc |
| 21 | hung | hang | VERB | Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | 18 cut | conj |
| 22 | upon | upon | ADP | _ | 24 battlements | case |
| 23 | the | the | DET | Definite=Def PronType=Art | 24 battlements | det |
| 24 | battlements | battlement | NOUN | Number=Plur | 21 hung | obl |
| 25 | . | . | PUNCT | _ | 3 asked | punct |
Pragmatics
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | ask speech: ask | past · passive | Quimus | tree rules | |||||
| 2 | not give | could | the true answer | vn give-13.1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent answer=Theme | |||||
| 3 | cut off | past · passive | Quimus's head | vn stop-55.4-1 «NP V NP.eventuality»: subject=Eventuality | |||||
| 4 | hang | past | the battlements | vn assuming_position-50 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Agent upon battlement=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 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/pg3282/1/72/