The Brown Fairy Book, The Brown Fairy Book, part 16, sentence 61

“Was that you I heard walking about just now?” he asked, for wolverines are cautious animals, and always like to know the reasons of things.

Who acts: you, Wolverine, wolverines · What happens: be, walk, ask, like, know · To what, where: reasons · Speech: someone speaks here

This is a sentence of «The Brown Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Brown Fairy Book, part 16. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (you, Wolverine, wolverines), 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	_	6 heard	punct
2	Was	be	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	6 heard	cop
3	that	that	SCONJ	_	6 heard	mark
4	you	you	PRON	Case=Nom Person=2 PronType=Prs	6 heard	nsubj
5	I	I	PRON	Case=Nom Number=Sing Person=1 PronType=Prs	4 you	conj
6	heard	hear	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	root	root
7	walking	walk	VERB	VerbForm=Ger	6 heard	xcomp
8	about	about	ADV	_	7 walking	advmod
9	just	just	ADV	_	10 now	advmod
10	now	now	ADV	PronType=Dem	7 walking	advmod
11	?	?	PUNCT	_	6 heard	punct
12	”	"	PUNCT	_	6 heard	punct
13	he	he	PRON	Case=Nom Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	14 asked	nsubj
14	asked	ask	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	6 heard	parataxis
15	,	,	PUNCT	_	20 animals	punct
16	for	for	ADP	_	20 animals	case
17	wolverines	wolverine	NOUN	Number=Plur	20 animals	nsubj
18	are	be	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	20 animals	cop
19	cautious	cautious	ADJ	Degree=Pos	20 animals	amod
20	animals	animal	NOUN	Number=Plur	14 asked	ccomp
21	,	,	PUNCT	_	24 like	punct
22	and	and	CCONJ	_	24 like	cc
23	always	always	ADV	PronType=Tot	24 like	advmod
24	like	like	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	14 asked	conj
25	to	to	PART	_	26 know	mark
26	know	know	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	24 like	xcomp
27	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	28 reasons	det
28	reasons	reason	NOUN	Number=Plur	26 know	obj
29	of	of	ADP	_	30 things	case
30	things	thing	NOUN	Number=Plur	28 reasons	nmod
31	.	.	PUNCT	_	6 heard	punct

Pragmatics

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	when	other	roles by
1	is in a quote	past	you			hear property	tree rules
2	walk in a quote	gerund	you not said here		now	about property	vn run-51.3.2-2-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme
3	ask speech: ask	past	Wolverine				vn inquire-37.1.2 «NP V»: agent=Agent
4	is	present	wolverines			for cautious animals	tree rules
5	like	infinitive	Wolverine not said here			always property	vn want-32.1-1-1 «NP V NP S_INF»: agent=Pivot clause=Theme
6	know not said to happen	to-infinitive	Wolverine not said here	the reasons of things			vn comprehend-87.2-1-1-1 «NP V NP PP.attribute»: agent=Experiencer reason=Stimulus

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/pg3282/16/61/