The Brown Fairy Book, The Brown Fairy Book, part 30, sentence 44

Then the prince inquired why she was wandering about all by herself, and she told him that since her mother’s death she was so sad that whilst her father was away she preferred being alone.

Who acts: prince, Signy, father, mother · What happens: inquire, wonder, tell, be, prefer, die · To what, where: Ring · Speech: someone speaks here

This is a sentence of «The Brown Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Brown Fairy Book, part 30. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (prince, Signy, father, mother), 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	Then	then	ADV	PronType=Dem	4 inquired	advmod
2	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	3 prince	det
3	prince	prince	NOUN	Number=Sing	4 inquired	nsubj
4	inquired	inquire	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	root	root
5	why	why	ADV	PronType=Int	8 wandering	advmod
6	she	she	PRON	Case=Nom Gender=Fem Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	8 wandering	nsubj
7	was	be	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	8 wandering	aux
8	wandering	wonder	VERB	Tense=Pres VerbForm=Part	4 inquired	advcl
9	about	about	ADP	_	12 herself	case
10	all	all	ADV	_	12 herself	advmod
11	by	by	ADP	_	12 herself	case
12	herself	herself	PRON	Case=Acc Gender=Fem Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs Reflex=Yes	8 wandering	obl
13	,	,	PUNCT	_	16 told	punct
14	and	and	CCONJ	_	16 told	cc
15	she	she	PRON	Case=Nom Gender=Fem Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	16 told	nsubj
16	told	tell	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	4 inquired	conj
17	him	he	PRON	Case=Acc Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	16 told	iobj
18	that	that	SCONJ	_	27 sad	mark
19	since	since	ADP	_	23 death	case
20	her	her	PRON	Case=Gen Gender=Fem Number=Sing Person=3 Poss=Yes PronType=Prs	21 mother	nmod:poss
21	mother	mother	NOUN	Number=Sing	23 death	nmod:poss
22	’s	's	PART	_	21 mother	case
23	death	death	NOUN	Number=Sing	27 sad	obl
24	she	she	PRON	Case=Nom Gender=Fem Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	27 sad	nsubj
25	was	be	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	27 sad	cop
26	so	so	ADV	_	27 sad	advmod
27	sad	sad	ADJ	Degree=Pos	16 told	advcl
28	that	that	SCONJ	_	35 preferred	mark
29	whilst	whilst	SCONJ	_	33 away	mark
30	her	her	PRON	Case=Gen Gender=Fem Number=Sing Person=3 Poss=Yes PronType=Prs	31 father	nmod:poss
31	father	father	NOUN	Number=Sing	33 away	nsubj
32	was	be	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	33 away	cop
33	away	away	ADV	_	35 preferred	advcl
34	she	she	PRON	Case=Nom Gender=Fem Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	35 preferred	nsubj
35	preferred	prefer	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	27 sad	advcl
36	being	be	AUX	Tense=Pres VerbForm=Part	37 alone	cop
37	alone	alone	ADV	_	35 preferred	advmod
38	.	.	PUNCT	_	4 inquired	punct

Pragmatics

#	verb	tense, mood	who	to whom	when	other	roles by
1	inquire speech: other	past	the prince		then		vn inquire-37.1.2 «NP V»: agent=Agent
2	wonder speech: ask	past · progressive	Signy			about Signy	vn care-88.1-1 «NP V PP.stimulus what S»: agent=Experiencer about herself=Stimulus
3	tell speech: assert	past	Signy	Ring			vn transfer_mesg-37.1.1-1-1 «NP V NP.recipient»: agent=Agent he=Recipient
4	is	past	Signy		since Signy's mother's death	sad property	tree rules
5	is	past	Signy's father			away property	tree rules
6	prefer	past	Signy				vn admire-31.2 «NP V that S»: agent=Experiencer
7	is	gerund				alone property	tree rules
8	die		Signy's mother				nom death «event intransitive»: poss=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/pg3282/30/44/