The Brown Fairy Book, The Brown Fairy Book, part 28, sentence 74

If strength and swiftness could gain him a dinner he was sure never to be without one, but when it came to cunning, both the grizzly bear and the serpent could get the better of him, and he was forced to call in the help of the wild cat.

Who acts: strength, Neuislandischen, dinner, serpent · What happens: gain, be, not be, come, get, force · To what, where: dinner, Neuislandischen, grizzly bear, cunning, help, wild cat · Speech: someone speaks here

This is a sentence of «The Brown Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Brown Fairy Book, part 28. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (strength, Neuislandischen, dinner, serpent), 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	If	if	SCONJ	_	6 gain	mark
2	strength	strength	NOUN	Number=Sing	6 gain	nsubj
3	and	and	CCONJ	_	4 swiftness	cc
4	swiftness	swiftness	NOUN	Number=Sing	2 strength	conj
5	could	could	AUX	VerbForm=Fin	6 gain	aux
6	gain	gain	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	12 sure	advcl
7	him	he	PRON	Case=Acc Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	6 gain	obj
8	a	a	DET	Definite=Ind PronType=Art	9 dinner	det
9	dinner	dinner	NOUN	Number=Sing	6 gain	obj
10	he	he	PRON	Case=Nom Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	12 sure	nsubj
11	was	be	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	12 sure	cop
12	sure	sure	ADJ	Degree=Pos	root	root
13	never	never	ADV	PronType=Neg	17 one	advmod
14	to	to	PART	_	17 one	mark
15	be	be	AUX	VerbForm=Inf	17 one	cop
16	without	without	ADP	_	17 one	case
17	one	one	NUM	NumForm=Word NumType=Card	12 sure	obl
18	,	,	PUNCT	_	22 came	punct
19	but	but	CCONJ	_	22 came	cc
20	when	when	ADV	PronType=Int	22 came	advmod
21	it	it	PRON	Case=Nom Gender=Neut Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	22 came	nsubj
22	came	come	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	12 sure	parataxis
23	to	to	ADP	_	24 cunning	case
24	cunning	cunning	NOUN	Number=Sing	22 came	obl
25	,	,	PUNCT	_	29 bear	punct
26	both	both	CCONJ	_	29 bear	cc:preconj
27	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	29 bear	det
28	grizzly	grizzly	ADJ	Degree=Pos	29 bear	amod
29	bear	bear	NOUN	Number=Sing	22 came	obl
30	and	and	CCONJ	_	34 get	cc
31	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	32 serpent	det
32	serpent	serpent	NOUN	Number=Sing	34 get	nsubj
33	could	could	AUX	VerbForm=Fin	34 get	aux
34	get	get	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	29 bear	conj
35	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	36 better	det
36	better	good	ADJ	Degree=Cmp	34 get	xcomp
37	of	of	ADP	_	38 him	case
38	him	he	PRON	Case=Acc Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	36 better	obl
39	,	,	PUNCT	_	43 forced	punct
40	and	and	CCONJ	_	43 forced	cc
41	he	he	PRON	Case=Nom Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	43 forced	nsubj:pass
42	was	be	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	43 forced	aux:pass
43	forced	force	VERB	Tense=Past VerbForm=Part Voice=Pass	22 came	parataxis
44	to	to	PART	_	45 call	mark
45	call	call	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	43 forced	xcomp
46	in	in	ADP	_	48 help	case
47	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	48 help	det
48	help	help	NOUN	Number=Sing	45 call	obl
49	of	of	ADP	_	52 cat	case
50	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	52 cat	det
51	wild	wild	ADJ	Degree=Pos	52 cat	amod
52	cat	cat	NOUN	Number=Sing	48 help	nmod
53	.	.	PUNCT	_	12 sure	punct

Pragmatics

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	other	roles by
1	gain a condition, not said to happen	could	strength and swiftness	a dinner	Neuislandischen			vn get-13.5.1-1 «NP V NP.beneficiary NP»: agent=Agent he=Beneficiary dinner=Theme
2	is	past	Neuislandischen				sure property	tree rules
3	not is	to-infinitive					without one	tree rules
4	come	past	dinner	the grizzly bear		cunning		vn escape-51.1-1 «NP V PP.initial_location»: agent=Theme to cunning=Initial_Location
5	get	could	the serpent				good property	vn comprehend-87.2-1 «NP V S_ING»: agent=Experiencer
6	force	past · passive		Neuislandischen				vn urge-58.1-1 «NP V NP S_ING»: subject=Recipient clause=Topic
7	call	to-infinitive	Neuislandischen not said here			the help of the wild cat		vn initiate_communication-37.4.2-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent
8	help			the wild cat				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/pg3282/28/74/