The Brown Fairy Book, Story of Wali Dâd the Simple-Hearted, part 5, sentence 29

At length they came to a stone staircase, which was so dark that you could not see your hand if you held it up before your face.

Who acts: things, stone staircase, you · What happens: come, be, not see, hold up · To what, where: length, hand

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 (things, stone staircase, 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	At	at	ADP	_	2 length	case
2	length	length	NOUN	Number=Sing	4 came	obl
3	they	they	PRON	Case=Nom Number=Plur Person=3 PronType=Prs	4 came	nsubj
4	came	come	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	root	root
5	to	to	ADP	_	8 staircase	case
6	a	a	DET	Definite=Ind PronType=Art	8 staircase	det
7	stone	stone	NOUN	Number=Sing	8 staircase	compound
8	staircase	staircase	NOUN	Number=Sing	4 came	obl
9	,	,	PUNCT	_	13 dark	punct
10	which	which	PRON	PronType=Rel	13 dark	nsubj
11	was	be	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	13 dark	cop
12	so	so	ADV	_	13 dark	advmod
13	dark	dark	ADJ	Degree=Pos	8 staircase	amod
14	that	that	SCONJ	_	18 see	mark
15	you	you	PRON	Case=Nom Person=2 PronType=Prs	18 see	nsubj
16	could	could	AUX	VerbForm=Fin	18 see	aux
17	not	not	PART	Polarity=Neg	18 see	advmod
18	see	see	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	13 dark	advcl
19	your	your	PRON	Case=Gen Person=2 Poss=Yes PronType=Prs	20 hand	nmod:poss
20	hand	hand	NOUN	Number=Sing	18 see	obj
21	if	if	SCONJ	_	23 held	mark
22	you	you	PRON	Case=Nom Person=2 PronType=Prs	23 held	nsubj
23	held	hold	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=2 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	18 see	advcl
24	it	it	PRON	Case=Acc Gender=Neut Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	23 held	obj
25	up	up	ADP	_	23 held	compound:prt
26	before	before	ADP	_	28 face	case
27	your	your	PRON	Case=Gen Person=2 Poss=Yes PronType=Prs	28 face	nmod:poss
28	face	face	NOUN	Number=Sing	23 held	obl
29	.	.	PUNCT	_	4 came	punct

Pragmatics

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	come	past	things = thing		length		to a stone staircase	vn escape-51.1-1 «NP V PP.initial_location»: agent=Theme to staircase=Initial_Location
2	is	past	a stone staircase				dark property	tree rules
3	not see	could	you	your hand				vn comprehend-87.2-1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Experiencer hand=Stimulus
4	hold up a condition, not said to happen	past	you	hand		before your face		vn support-15.3-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Pivot it=Theme

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.

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