The Brown Fairy Book, The Brown Fairy Book, part 11, sentence 68

Unluckily some children who were playing about caught sight of him, and one of them, stealing softly up behind him, laid tight hold of his ears.

Who acts: children, one · What happens: play, catch, steal, lay, sight, hold · To what, where: tight hold, bend, ears

This is a sentence of «The Brown Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Brown Fairy Book, part 11. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (children, one), 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	Unluckily	unluckily	ADV	_	6 playing	advmod
2	some	some	DET	PronType=Ind	3 children	det
3	children	child	NOUN	Number=Plur	6 playing	nsubj
4	who	who	PRON	PronType=Rel	6 playing	nsubj
5	were	be	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	6 playing	aux
6	playing	play	VERB	Tense=Pres VerbForm=Part	root	root
7	about	about	ADP	_	9 sight	case
8	caught	catch	VERB	Tense=Past VerbForm=Part Voice=Pass	9 sight	amod
9	sight	sight	NOUN	Number=Sing	6 playing	obl
10	of	of	ADP	_	11 him	case
11	him	he	PRON	Case=Acc Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	9 sight	nmod
12	,	,	PUNCT	_	18 stealing	punct
13	and	and	CCONJ	_	18 stealing	cc
14	one	one	NUM	NumForm=Word NumType=Card	18 stealing	nsubj
15	of	of	ADP	_	16 them	case
16	them	they	PRON	Case=Acc Number=Plur Person=3 PronType=Prs	14 one	nmod
17	,	,	PUNCT	_	18 stealing	punct
18	stealing	steal	VERB	Tense=Pres VerbForm=Part	6 playing	parataxis
19	softly	softly	ADV	_	20 up	advmod
20	up	up	ADV	_	18 stealing	advmod
21	behind	behind	ADP	_	22 him	case
22	him	he	PRON	Case=Acc Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	18 stealing	obl
23	,	,	PUNCT	_	24 laid	punct
24	laid	lay	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	18 stealing	conj
25	tight	tight	ADJ	Degree=Pos	26 hold	amod
26	hold	hold	NOUN	Number=Sing	24 laid	obj
27	of	of	ADP	_	29 ears	case
28	his	his	PRON	Case=Gen Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 Poss=Yes PronType=Prs	29 ears	nmod:poss
29	ears	ear	NOUN	Number=Plur	26 hold	nmod
30	.	.	PUNCT	_	6 playing	punct

Pragmatics

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	other	roles by
1	play	past · progressive	some children		about caught sight of bend; unluckily property	vn performance-26.7-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent
2	catch	participle				vn get-13.5.1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent
3	steal	gerund	one of children		behind bend	vn appear-48.1.1 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Theme behind he=Location
4	lay	past	one of children not said here	tight hold of bend's ears		vn create-26.4 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent hold=Result
5	sight			bend		nom sight «cognition transitive»: of=patient
6	hold			bend's ears		nom hold «act transitive»: of=patient

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/pg3282/11/68/