The Brown Fairy Book, The Brown Fairy Book, part 4, sentence 74
The dragon writhed on itself, and belched forth an evil vapour, and beat the ground with its head till the earth quaked.
Who acts: dragon, earth · What happens: writhe, belch, beat, quake · To what, where: dragon, evil vapour, ground
This is a sentence of «The Brown Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Brown Fairy Book, part 4. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (dragon, earth), 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 | The | the | DET | Definite=Def PronType=Art | 2 dragon | det |
| 2 | dragon | dragon | NOUN | Number=Sing | 15 beat | nsubj |
| 3 | writhed | writhe | VERB | Tense=Past VerbForm=Part Voice=Pass | 2 dragon | acl |
| 4 | on | on | ADP | _ | 5 itself | case |
| 5 | itself | itself | PRON | Case=Acc Gender=Neut Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs Reflex=Yes | 3 writhed | obl |
| 6 | , | , | PUNCT | _ | 8 belched | punct |
| 7 | and | and | CCONJ | _ | 8 belched | cc |
| 8 | belched | belch | VERB | Tense=Past VerbForm=Part Voice=Pass | 2 dragon | acl |
| 9 | forth | forth | ADV | _ | 12 vapour | advmod |
| 10 | an | a | DET | Definite=Ind PronType=Art | 12 vapour | det |
| 11 | evil | evil | ADJ | Degree=Pos | 12 vapour | amod |
| 12 | vapour | vapour | NOUN | Number=Sing | 8 belched | obl |
| 13 | , | , | PUNCT | _ | 15 beat | punct |
| 14 | and | and | CCONJ | _ | 15 beat | cc |
| 15 | beat | beat | VERB | Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | root | root |
| 16 | the | the | DET | Definite=Def PronType=Art | 17 ground | det |
| 17 | ground | ground | NOUN | Number=Sing | 15 beat | obj |
| 18 | with | with | ADP | _ | 20 head | case |
| 19 | its | its | PRON | Case=Gen Gender=Neut Number=Sing Person=3 Poss=Yes PronType=Prs | 20 head | nmod:poss |
| 20 | head | head | NOUN | Number=Sing | 15 beat | obl |
| 21 | till | till | SCONJ | _ | 24 quaked | mark |
| 22 | the | the | DET | Definite=Def PronType=Art | 23 earth | det |
| 23 | earth | earth | NOUN | Number=Sing | 24 quaked | nsubj |
| 24 | quaked | quake | VERB | Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | 15 beat | advcl |
| 25 | . | . | PUNCT | _ | 15 beat | punct |
Pragmatics
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | writhe | participle | the dragon not said here | on dragon | vn modes_of_being_with_motion-47.3 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Theme on itself=Location | ||||
| 2 | belch | participle | the dragon not said here | a evil vapour | vn hiccup-40.1.1 «NP V»: agent=Agent | ||||
| 3 | beat | past | the dragon | the ground | with dragon's head | vn hit-18.1-1 «NP V NP PP.instrument»: agent=Agent ground=Patient with head=Instrument | |||
| 4 | quake | past | the earth | vn body_internal_states-40.6 «NP V»: agent=Experiencer |
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/pg3282/4/74/