The Brown Fairy Book, The Brown Fairy Book, part 20, sentence 24

The night was still and cold, and by the help of the Northern Lights he could almost sea across to the opposite coast, when, suddenly, he noticed a boat, which seemed steering straight for the island.

Who acts: night, dance, boat · What happens: be, sea, notice, seem, steer, help · To what, where: opposite coast, boat, Northern Lights

This is a sentence of «The Brown Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Brown Fairy Book, part 20. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (night, dance, boat), 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	The	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	2 night	det
2	night	night	NOUN	Number=Sing	6 cold	nsubj
3	was	be	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	6 cold	cop
4	still	still	ADV	_	6 cold	advmod
5	and	and	CCONJ	_	6 cold	cc
6	cold	cold	ADJ	Degree=Pos	root	root
7	,	,	PUNCT	_	19 sea	punct
8	and	and	CCONJ	_	19 sea	cc
9	by	by	ADP	_	11 help	case
10	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	11 help	det
11	help	help	NOUN	Number=Sing	19 sea	obl
12	of	of	ADP	_	15 Lights	case
13	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	15 Lights	det
14	Northern	northern	ADJ	Degree=Pos	15 Lights	amod
15	Lights	Light	PROPN	Number=Plur	11 help	nmod
16	he	he	PRON	Case=Nom Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	19 sea	nsubj
17	could	could	AUX	VerbForm=Fin	19 sea	aux
18	almost	almost	ADV	_	19 sea	advmod
19	sea	sea	NOUN	Number=Sing	6 cold	conj
20	across	across	ADP	_	24 coast	case
21	to	to	ADP	_	24 coast	case
22	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	24 coast	det
23	opposite	opposite	ADJ	Degree=Pos	24 coast	amod
24	coast	coast	NOUN	Number=Sing	19 sea	nmod
25	,	,	PUNCT	_	26 when	punct
26	when	when	ADV	PronType=Int	6 cold	parataxis
27	,	,	PUNCT	_	31 noticed	punct
28	suddenly	suddenly	ADV	_	31 noticed	advmod
29	,	,	PUNCT	_	31 noticed	punct
30	he	he	PRON	Case=Nom Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	31 noticed	nsubj
31	noticed	notice	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	6 cold	advcl
32	a	a	DET	Definite=Ind PronType=Art	33 boat	det
33	boat	boat	NOUN	Number=Sing	31 noticed	obj
34	,	,	PUNCT	_	36 seemed	punct
35	which	which	PRON	PronType=Rel	36 seemed	nsubj
36	seemed	seem	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	33 boat	acl:relcl
37	steering	steer	VERB	VerbForm=Ger	36 seemed	xcomp
38	straight	straight	ADV	_	37 steering	advmod
39	for	for	ADP	_	41 island	case
40	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	41 island	det
41	island	island	NOUN	Number=Sing	37 steering	obl
42	.	.	PUNCT	_	6 cold	punct

Pragmatics

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	is	past	the night			still	cold property	tree rules
2	sea	could	dance		the opposite coast		by the help of the Northern Lights; almost property	tree rules
3	notice	past	dance	a boat			suddenly property	vn see-30.1-1 «NP V S»: agent=Experiencer boat=Stimulus
4	seem	past	a boat					vn seem-109-1-1-1 «NP V S_INF»: agent=Theme clause=Attribute
5	steer	gerund	a boat not said here				for the island; straight property	vn accompany-51.7 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent
6	help			the Northern Lights				nom help «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/pg3282/20/24/