The Brown Fairy Book, The Brown Fairy Book, part 12, sentence 90
“It is impossible to fight them—they are twelve to two,” whispered Geirald, stopping his horse in the path.
Who acts: robbers, Geirald · What happens: be, fight, whisper, stop · To what, where: robbers, twelve, horse, path · Speech: someone speaks here
This is a sentence of «The Brown Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Brown Fairy Book, part 12. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (robbers, Geirald), 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 | “ | " | PUNCT | _ | 4 impossible | punct |
| 2 | It | it | PRON | Case=Nom Gender=Neut Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs | 4 impossible | expl |
| 3 | is | be | AUX | Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin | 4 impossible | cop |
| 4 | impossible | impossible | ADJ | Degree=Pos | 16 whispered | nsubj |
| 5 | to | to | PART | _ | 6 fight | mark |
| 6 | fight | fight | VERB | VerbForm=Inf | 4 impossible | csubj |
| 7 | them | they | PRON | Case=Acc Number=Plur Person=3 PronType=Prs | 6 fight | obj |
| 8 | — | - | PUNCT | _ | 11 twelve | punct |
| 9 | they | they | PRON | Case=Nom Number=Plur Person=3 PronType=Prs | 11 twelve | nsubj |
| 10 | are | be | AUX | Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin | 11 twelve | cop |
| 11 | twelve | twelve | NUM | NumForm=Word NumType=Card | 4 impossible | parataxis |
| 12 | to | to | ADP | _ | 13 two | case |
| 13 | two | two | NUM | NumForm=Word NumType=Card | 11 twelve | nmod |
| 14 | , | , | PUNCT | _ | 4 impossible | punct |
| 15 | ” | " | PUNCT | _ | 4 impossible | punct |
| 16 | whispered | whisper | VERB | Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | root | root |
| 17 | Geirald | Geirald | PROPN | Number=Sing | 16 whispered | obj |
| 18 | , | , | PUNCT | _ | 19 stopping | punct |
| 19 | stopping | stop | VERB | Tense=Pres VerbForm=Part | 16 whispered | advcl |
| 20 | his | his | PRON | Case=Gen Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 Poss=Yes PronType=Prs | 21 horse | nmod:poss |
| 21 | horse | horse | NOUN | Number=Sing | 19 stopping | obj |
| 22 | in | in | ADP | _ | 24 path | case |
| 23 | the | the | DET | Definite=Def PronType=Art | 24 path | det |
| 24 | path | path | NOUN | Number=Sing | 19 stopping | obl |
| 25 | . | . | PUNCT | _ | 16 whispered | punct |
Pragmatics
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | is in a quote | present | impossible property | tree rules | |||||
| 2 | fight in a quote | to-infinitive | robbers = robber | vn battle-36.4-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent they=Co-Agent | |||||
| 3 | is a in a quote | present | robbers = robber | twelve | to two | tree rules | |||
| 4 | whisper speech: assert | past | Geirald | vn manner_speaking-37.3 «NP V»: agent=Agent | |||||
| 5 | stop | gerund | Geirald not said here | Geirald's horse | the path | vn stop-55.4-1-1 «NP V NP.eventuality»: agent=Subeventuality horse=Eventuality |
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/pg3282/12/90/