The Brown Fairy Book, The Brown Fairy Book, part 6, sentence 92
The ball seemed always within his grasp, yet he could never catch it; it went quicker and quicker, and the boy grew more and more excited.
Who acts: ball, boy · What happens: seem, not catch, go, grow, grasp · To what, where: ball
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 (ball, boy), 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 ball | det |
| 2 | ball | ball | NOUN | Number=Sing | 3 seemed | nsubj |
| 3 | seemed | seem | VERB | Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | root | root |
| 4 | always | always | ADV | PronType=Tot | 3 seemed | advmod |
| 5 | within | within | ADP | _ | 7 grasp | case |
| 6 | his | his | PRON | Case=Gen Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 Poss=Yes PronType=Prs | 7 grasp | nmod:poss |
| 7 | grasp | grasp | NOUN | Number=Sing | 3 seemed | obl |
| 8 | , | , | PUNCT | _ | 13 catch | punct |
| 9 | yet | yet | CCONJ | _ | 13 catch | cc |
| 10 | he | he | PRON | Case=Nom Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs | 13 catch | nsubj |
| 11 | could | could | AUX | VerbForm=Fin | 13 catch | aux |
| 12 | never | never | ADV | PronType=Neg | 13 catch | advmod |
| 13 | catch | catch | VERB | VerbForm=Inf | 3 seemed | conj |
| 14 | it | it | PRON | Case=Acc Gender=Neut Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs | 13 catch | obj |
| 15 | ; | ; | PUNCT | _ | 17 went | punct |
| 16 | it | it | PRON | Case=Nom Gender=Neut Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs | 17 went | nsubj |
| 17 | went | go | VERB | Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | 3 seemed | parataxis |
| 18 | quicker | quick | ADV | Degree=Cmp | 17 went | advmod |
| 19 | and | and | CCONJ | _ | 20 quicker | cc |
| 20 | quicker | quick | ADV | Degree=Cmp | 18 quicker | conj |
| 21 | , | , | PUNCT | _ | 25 grew | punct |
| 22 | and | and | CCONJ | _ | 25 grew | cc |
| 23 | the | the | DET | Definite=Def PronType=Art | 24 boy | det |
| 24 | boy | boy | NOUN | Number=Sing | 25 grew | nsubj |
| 25 | grew | grow | VERB | Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | 17 went | conj |
| 26 | more | more | ADV | Degree=Cmp | 25 grew | advmod |
| 27 | and | and | CCONJ | _ | 29 excited | cc |
| 28 | more | more | ADV | Degree=Cmp | 29 excited | advmod |
| 29 | excited | excited | ADJ | Degree=Pos | 25 grew | conj |
| 30 | . | . | PUNCT | _ | 3 seemed | punct |
Pragmatics
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | seem | past | the ball | within boy's grasp; always property | vn seem-109-1-1-1 «NP V S_INF»: agent=Theme | ||||
| 2 | not catch | could | boy | ball | vn get-13.5.1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent it=Theme | ||||
| 3 | go | past | ball | quick property | vn disappearance-48.2-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme | ||||
| 4 | grow | past | the boy | vn appear-48.1.1 «NP V»: agent=Theme | |||||
| 5 | grasp | boy | nom grasp «cognition transitive»: poss=agent |
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/pg3282/6/92/