The Brown Fairy Book, Story of Wali Dâd the Simple-Hearted, part 5, sentence 39
“I had better say nothing,” thought he; “perhaps I shall be able to help him after all.”
Who acts: I · What happens: have, say, think, be, help · To what, where: nothing, Knight · Speech: someone speaks here
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 (I), 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 | _ | 3 had | punct |
| 2 | I | I | PRON | Case=Nom Number=Sing Person=1 PronType=Prs | 3 had | nsubj |
| 3 | had | have | VERB | Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=1 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | 9 thought | parataxis |
| 4 | better | good | ADJ | Degree=Cmp | 3 had | xcomp |
| 5 | say | say | VERB | VerbForm=Inf | 3 had | xcomp |
| 6 | nothing | nothing | PRON | Number=Sing PronType=Neg | 5 say | obj |
| 7 | , | , | PUNCT | _ | 3 had | punct |
| 8 | ” | " | PUNCT | _ | 3 had | punct |
| 9 | thought | think | VERB | Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=1 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | root | root |
| 10 | he | he | PRON | Case=Nom Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs | 9 thought | obj |
| 11 | ; | ; | PUNCT | _ | 17 able | punct |
| 12 | “ | " | PUNCT | _ | 17 able | punct |
| 13 | perhaps | perhaps | ADV | _ | 17 able | advmod |
| 14 | I | I | PRON | Case=Nom Number=Sing Person=1 PronType=Prs | 17 able | nsubj |
| 15 | shall | shall | AUX | VerbForm=Fin | 17 able | aux |
| 16 | be | be | AUX | VerbForm=Inf | 17 able | cop |
| 17 | able | able | ADJ | Degree=Pos | 9 thought | ccomp |
| 18 | to | to | PART | _ | 19 help | mark |
| 19 | help | help | VERB | VerbForm=Inf | 17 able | xcomp |
| 20 | him | he | PRON | Case=Acc Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs | 19 help | obj |
| 21 | after | after | ADP | _ | 22 all | case |
| 22 | all | all | DET | PronType=Tot | 19 help | obl |
| 23 | . | . | PUNCT | _ | 17 able | punct |
| 24 | ” | " | PUNCT | _ | 17 able | punct |
Pragmatics
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | have in a quote | past | I | good property | tree rules | ||||
| 2 | say speech: assert in a quote | infinitive | I not said here | nothing | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V NP.topic»: agent=Agent nothing=Topic | ||||
| 3 | think speech: other | past | Knight | vn consider-29.9-2 «NP V NP ADJ»: agent=Agent he=Attribute clause=Theme | |||||
| 4 | is in a quote | shall | I | able, perhaps property | tree rules | ||||
| 5 | help in a quote | to-infinitive | I not said here | Knight | after all | vn help-72.1-1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent he=Beneficiary |
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/pg3282/38/39/