The Brown Fairy Book, The Brown Fairy Book, part 29, sentence 1

“Dear me, how dull it is here!” said the lion one afternoon, when the rain was pouring down in such torrents that, however sharp your eyes or your nose might be, you could not spy a single bird or beast among the bushes.

Who acts: it, lion, rain, you · What happens: be, say, pour down, not spy · To what, where: such torrents, single bird · Speech: someone speaks here

This is a sentence of «The Brown Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Brown Fairy Book, part 29. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (it, lion, rain, you), 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	_	12 said	punct
2	Dear	dear	ADJ	Degree=Pos	12 said	ccomp
3	me	I	PRON	Case=Acc Number=Sing Person=1 PronType=Prs	2 Dear	iobj
4	,	,	PUNCT	_	6 dull	punct
5	how	how	ADV	PronType=Int	6 dull	advmod
6	dull	dull	ADJ	Degree=Pos	2 Dear	conj
7	it	it	PRON	Case=Nom Gender=Neut Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	9 here	nsubj
8	is	be	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	9 here	cop
9	here	here	ADV	PronType=Dem	6 dull	ccomp
10	!	!	PUNCT	_	6 dull	punct
11	”	"	PUNCT	_	6 dull	punct
12	said	say	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=1 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	root	root
13	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	14 lion	det
14	lion	lion	NOUN	Number=Sing	12 said	obj
15	one	one	NUM	NumForm=Word NumType=Card	16 afternoon	nummod
16	afternoon	afternoon	NOUN	Number=Sing	12 said	obl:unmarked
17	,	,	PUNCT	_	22 pouring	punct
18	when	when	ADV	PronType=Int	22 pouring	advmod
19	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	20 rain	det
20	rain	rain	NOUN	Number=Sing	22 pouring	nsubj
21	was	be	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	22 pouring	aux
22	pouring	pour	VERB	Tense=Pres VerbForm=Part	12 said	advcl
23	down	down	ADV	_	22 pouring	advmod
24	in	in	ADP	_	26 torrents	case
25	such	such	ADJ	Degree=Pos	26 torrents	amod
26	torrents	torrent	NOUN	Number=Plur	22 pouring	obl
27	that	that	PRON	PronType=Rel	37 be	obj
28	,	,	PUNCT	_	32 eyes	punct
29	however	however	ADV	_	32 eyes	advmod
30	sharp	sharp	ADJ	Degree=Pos	32 eyes	amod
31	your	your	PRON	Case=Gen Person=2 Poss=Yes PronType=Prs	32 eyes	nmod:poss
32	eyes	eye	NOUN	Number=Plur	37 be	nsubj
33	or	or	CCONJ	_	35 nose	cc
34	your	your	PRON	Case=Gen Person=2 Poss=Yes PronType=Prs	35 nose	nmod:poss
35	nose	nose	NOUN	Number=Sing	32 eyes	conj
36	might	might	AUX	VerbForm=Fin	37 be	aux
37	be	be	AUX	VerbForm=Inf	26 torrents	acl:relcl
38	,	,	PUNCT	_	42 spy	punct
39	you	you	PRON	Case=Nom Person=2 PronType=Prs	42 spy	nsubj
40	could	could	AUX	VerbForm=Fin	42 spy	aux
41	not	not	PART	Polarity=Neg	42 spy	advmod
42	spy	spy	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	12 said	conj
43	a	a	DET	Definite=Ind PronType=Art	45 bird	det
44	single	single	ADJ	Degree=Pos	45 bird	amod
45	bird	bird	NOUN	Number=Sing	42 spy	obj
46	or	or	CCONJ	_	47 beast	cc
47	beast	beast	NOUN	Number=Sing	45 bird	conj
48	among	among	ADP	_	50 bushes	case
49	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	50 bushes	det
50	bushes	bush	NOUN	Number=Plur	42 spy	obl
51	.	.	PUNCT	_	12 said	punct

Pragmatics

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	is in a quote	present	it				here property	tree rules
2	say speech: express	past	the lion			afternoon		vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent
3	pour down	past · progressive	the rain		such torrents		down property	vn substance_emission-43.4-1 «NP V»: agent=Source
4	not spy	could	you	a single bird or beast			among the bushes	vn sight-30.2 «NP V NP»: agent=Experiencer bird=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/pg3282/29/1/