The Brown Fairy Book, The Brown Fairy Book, part 23, sentence 21

He soon spied the three hens strutting proudly about, though they were really anxiously wondering if there were not some grains lying on the ground that they might be glad to eat.

Who acts: boy, three hens, hens, grains · What happens: spy, strut, wonder, be, lie, eat · To what, where: three hens, ground

This is a sentence of «The Brown Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Brown Fairy Book, part 23. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (boy, three hens, hens, grains), 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 spied	nsubj
2	soon	soon	ADV	Degree=Pos	3 spied	advmod
3	spied	spy	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	root	root
4	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	6 hens	det
5	three	three	NUM	NumForm=Word NumType=Card	6 hens	nummod
6	hens	hen	NOUN	Number=Plur	3 spied	obj
7	strutting	strut	VERB	VerbForm=Ger	6 hens	acl
8	proudly	proudly	ADV	_	9 about	advmod
9	about	about	ADV	_	7 strutting	advmod
10	,	,	PUNCT	_	16 wondering	punct
11	though	though	SCONJ	_	16 wondering	mark
12	they	they	PRON	Case=Nom Number=Plur Person=3 PronType=Prs	16 wondering	nsubj
13	were	be	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	16 wondering	aux
14	really	really	ADV	_	16 wondering	advmod
15	anxiously	anxiously	ADV	_	16 wondering	advmod
16	wondering	wonder	VERB	Tense=Pres VerbForm=Part	3 spied	advcl
17	if	if	SCONJ	_	19 were	mark
18	there	there	PRON	PronType=Dem	19 were	expl
19	were	be	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	16 wondering	ccomp
20	not	not	PART	Polarity=Neg	22 grains	advmod
21	some	some	DET	PronType=Ind	22 grains	det
22	grains	grain	NOUN	Number=Plur	19 were	nsubj
23	lying	lie	VERB	VerbForm=Ger	22 grains	acl
24	on	on	ADP	_	26 ground	case
25	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	26 ground	det
26	ground	ground	NOUN	Number=Sing	23 lying	obl
27	that	that	SCONJ	_	31 glad	mark
28	they	they	PRON	Case=Nom Number=Plur Person=3 PronType=Prs	31 glad	nsubj
29	might	might	AUX	VerbForm=Fin	31 glad	aux
30	be	be	AUX	VerbForm=Inf	31 glad	cop
31	glad	glad	ADJ	Degree=Pos	23 lying	advcl
32	to	to	PART	_	33 eat	mark
33	eat	eat	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	31 glad	xcomp
34	.	.	PUNCT	_	3 spied	punct

Pragmatics

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	where	other	roles by
1	spy	past	boy	the three hens		soon property	vn sight-30.2 «NP V NP»: agent=Experiencer hen=Stimulus
2	strut	gerund	the three hens not said here			about property	vn run-51.3.2-2 «NP V»: agent=Theme
3	wonder speech: ask	past · progressive	hens = hen			anxiously property	vn care-88.1-1 «NP V what S»: agent=Experiencer clause=Stimulus
4	be a condition, not said to happen	past	some grains		there		vn exist-47.1 «NP V»: agent=Theme
5	lie	gerund	some grains not said here		the ground		vn assuming_position-50 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Agent on ground=Location
6	is	might	hens = hen			glad property	tree rules
7	eat	to-infinitive	hens = hen not said here				vn eat-39.1-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent

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/pg3282/23/21/