The Brown Fairy Book, The Brown Fairy Book, part 6, sentence 84

Then, as soon as the child saw it, the ball would begin rolling slowly back to the witch, just keeping a little ahead of the child, so that he always thought that he could catch it the next minute.

Who acts: child, ball, Prince · What happens: see, begin, roll, keep, think, catch · To what, where: ball, little ahead

This is a sentence of «The Brown Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Brown Fairy Book, part 6. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (child, ball, Prince), 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	14 begin	advmod
2	,	,	PUNCT	_	1 Then	punct
3	as	as	ADV	_	4 soon	advmod
4	soon	soon	ADV	Degree=Pos	14 begin	advmod
5	as	as	SCONJ	_	8 saw	mark
6	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	7 child	det
7	child	child	NOUN	Number=Sing	8 saw	nsubj
8	saw	see	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	4 soon	advcl
9	it	it	PRON	Case=Acc Gender=Neut Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	8 saw	obj
10	,	,	PUNCT	_	4 soon	punct
11	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	12 ball	det
12	ball	ball	NOUN	Number=Sing	14 begin	nsubj
13	would	would	AUX	VerbForm=Fin	14 begin	aux
14	begin	begin	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	root	root
15	rolling	roll	VERB	VerbForm=Ger	14 begin	xcomp
16	slowly	slowly	ADV	_	17 back	advmod
17	back	back	ADV	_	15 rolling	advmod
18	to	to	ADP	_	20 witch	case
19	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	20 witch	det
20	witch	witch	NOUN	Number=Sing	17 back	obl
21	,	,	PUNCT	_	23 keeping	punct
22	just	just	ADV	_	23 keeping	advmod
23	keeping	keep	VERB	VerbForm=Ger	15 rolling	conj
24	a	a	DET	Definite=Ind PronType=Art	26 ahead	det
25	little	little	ADJ	Degree=Pos	26 ahead	amod
26	ahead	ahead	NOUN	Number=Sing	23 keeping	obj
27	of	of	ADP	_	29 child	case
28	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	29 child	det
29	child	child	NOUN	Number=Sing	26 ahead	nmod
30	,	,	PUNCT	_	35 thought	punct
31	so	so	SCONJ	ExtPos=SCONJ	35 thought	mark
32	that	that	SCONJ	_	31 so	fixed
33	he	he	PRON	Case=Nom Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	35 thought	nsubj
34	always	always	ADV	PronType=Tot	35 thought	advmod
35	thought	think	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	14 begin	conj
36	that	that	SCONJ	_	39 catch	mark
37	he	he	PRON	Case=Nom Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	39 catch	nsubj
38	could	could	AUX	VerbForm=Fin	39 catch	aux
39	catch	catch	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	35 thought	ccomp
40	it	it	PRON	Case=Acc Gender=Neut Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	39 catch	obj
41	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	43 minute	det
42	next	next	ADJ	Degree=Pos	43 minute	amod
43	minute	minute	NOUN	Number=Sing	39 catch	obl:unmarked
44	.	.	PUNCT	_	14 begin	punct

Pragmatics

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	when	other	roles by
1	see	past	the child	ball			vn comprehend-87.2-1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Experiencer it=Stimulus
2	begin	would	the ball		then	soon property	vn begin-55.1-1-1 «NP V S_ING»: agent=Agent clause=Eventuality
3	roll	gerund	the ball not said here				vn run-51.3.2-2 «NP V»: agent=Theme
4	keep	gerund	the ball not said here	a little ahead of the child			vn keep-15.2 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent ahead=Theme
5	think speech: other	past	Prince			always property	vn consider-29.9-2 «NP V how S»: agent=Agent clause=Theme
6	catch	could	Prince	ball	minute		vn get-13.5.1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent 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.

This page in Markdown → https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg3282/6/84/