The Brown Fairy Book, Story of Wali Dâd the Simple-Hearted, part 5, sentence 2

It needed a brave man to approach it, for it made your hair stand on end merely to look at it; it was as dark as the night of a storm, and as silent as the grave.

Who acts: spear, hair · What happens: need, approach, make, stand, look, be · To what, where: brave man, spear, hair, end

This is a sentence of «The Brown Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Story of Wali Dâd the Simple-Hearted, part 5. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (spear, hair), 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	It	it	PRON	Case=Nom Gender=Neut Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	2 needed	nsubj
2	needed	need	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	root	root
3	a	a	DET	Definite=Ind PronType=Art	5 man	det
4	brave	brave	ADJ	Degree=Pos	5 man	amod
5	man	man	NOUN	Number=Sing	2 needed	obj
6	to	to	PART	_	7 approach	mark
7	approach	approach	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	2 needed	advcl
8	it	it	PRON	Case=Acc Gender=Neut Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	7 approach	obj
9	,	,	PUNCT	_	12 made	punct
10	for	for	SCONJ	_	12 made	mark
11	it	it	PRON	Case=Nom Gender=Neut Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	12 made	nsubj
12	made	make	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	2 needed	conj
13	your	your	PRON	Case=Gen Person=2 Poss=Yes PronType=Prs	14 hair	nmod:poss
14	hair	hair	NOUN	Number=Sing	12 made	obj
15	stand	stand	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	12 made	xcomp
16	on	on	ADP	_	17 end	case
17	end	end	NOUN	Number=Sing	15 stand	obl
18	merely	merely	ADV	_	20 look	advmod
19	to	to	PART	_	20 look	mark
20	look	look	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	15 stand	advcl
21	at	at	ADP	_	22 it	case
22	it	it	PRON	Case=Acc Gender=Neut Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	20 look	obl
23	;	;	PUNCT	_	27 dark	punct
24	it	it	PRON	Case=Nom Gender=Neut Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	27 dark	nsubj
25	was	be	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	27 dark	cop
26	as	as	ADV	_	27 dark	advmod
27	dark	dark	ADJ	Degree=Pos	2 needed	parataxis
28	as	as	ADP	_	30 night	case
29	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	30 night	det
30	night	night	NOUN	Number=Sing	27 dark	obl
31	of	of	ADP	_	33 storm	case
32	a	a	DET	Definite=Ind PronType=Art	33 storm	det
33	storm	storm	NOUN	Number=Sing	30 night	nmod
34	,	,	PUNCT	_	37 silent	punct
35	and	and	CCONJ	_	37 silent	cc
36	as	as	ADV	_	37 silent	advmod
37	silent	silent	ADJ	Degree=Pos	27 dark	conj
38	as	as	ADP	_	40 grave	case
39	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	40 grave	det
40	grave	grave	NOUN	Number=Sing	37 silent	obl
41	.	.	PUNCT	_	2 needed	punct

Pragmatics

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	when	other	roles by
1	need	past	spear	a brave man			vn want-32.1-1-1 «NP V NP ADV»: agent=Pivot man=Theme
2	approach	to-infinitive	spear not said here	spear			vn confront-98 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent it=Theme
3	make	past	spear	your hair			tree rules
4	stand	infinitive	your hair not said here		on end		vn assuming_position-50 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Agent on end=Location
5	look	to-infinitive	your hair not said here			at spear; merely property	vn peer-30.3 «NP V PP.theme»: agent=Agent at it=Theme
6	is	past	spear		night	dark property	tree rules
7	be		spear not said here			as the grave	tree rules

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/pg3282/38/2/