The Brown Fairy Book, The Brown Fairy Book, part 7, sentence 4

But the stream flowed so quickly that he could not see how he was ever to cross it, and in order to test how swift the current really was, he broke a branch from a tree and threw it in.

Who acts: stream · What happens: flow, not see, be, test, swift, break · To what, where: current, branch, hut · Speech: someone speaks here

This is a sentence of «The Brown Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Brown Fairy Book, part 7. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (stream), 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	But	but	CCONJ	_	4 flowed	cc
2	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	3 stream	det
3	stream	stream	NOUN	Number=Sing	4 flowed	nsubj
4	flowed	flow	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	root	root
5	so	so	ADV	_	6 quickly	advmod
6	quickly	quickly	ADV	_	4 flowed	advmod
7	that	that	SCONJ	_	11 see	mark
8	he	he	PRON	Case=Nom Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	11 see	nsubj
9	could	could	AUX	VerbForm=Fin	11 see	aux
10	not	not	PART	Polarity=Neg	11 see	advmod
11	see	see	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	4 flowed	advcl
12	how	how	ADV	PronType=Int	17 cross	advmod
13	he	he	PRON	Case=Nom Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	17 cross	nsubj
14	was	be	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	17 cross	cop
15	ever	ever	ADV	PronType=Ind	17 cross	advmod
16	to	to	PART	_	17 cross	mark
17	cross	cross	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	11 see	ccomp
18	it	it	PRON	Case=Acc Gender=Neut Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	17 cross	obj
19	,	,	PUNCT	_	24 test	punct
20	and	and	CCONJ	_	24 test	cc
21	in	in	SCONJ	ExtPos=SCONJ	24 test	mark
22	order	order	NOUN	Number=Sing	21 in	fixed
23	to	to	PART	_	24 test	mark
24	test	test	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	4 flowed	advcl
25	how	how	ADV	PronType=Int	26 swift	advmod
26	swift	swift	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=1 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	24 test	ccomp
27	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	28 current	det
28	current	current	NOUN	Number=Sing	26 swift	obj
29	really	really	ADV	_	30 was	advmod
30	was	be	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	28 current	cop
31	,	,	PUNCT	_	33 broke	punct
32	he	he	PRON	Case=Nom Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	33 broke	nsubj
33	broke	break	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	4 flowed	parataxis
34	a	a	DET	Definite=Ind PronType=Art	35 branch	det
35	branch	branch	NOUN	Number=Sing	33 broke	obj
36	from	from	ADP	_	38 tree	case
37	a	a	DET	Definite=Ind PronType=Art	38 tree	det
38	tree	tree	NOUN	Number=Sing	33 broke	obl
39	and	and	CCONJ	_	40 threw	cc
40	threw	throw	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	33 broke	conj
41	it	it	PRON	Case=Acc Gender=Neut Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	40 threw	obj
42	in	in	ADP	_	40 threw	compound:prt
43	.	.	PUNCT	_	4 flowed	punct

Pragmatics

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	when	other	roles by
1	flow	past	the stream			quickly property	vn appear-48.1.1 «NP V»: agent=Theme
2	not see	could	stream				vn comprehend-87.2-1-1 «NP V how S_INF»: agent=Experiencer clause=Stimulus
3	is	past	stream		ever	cross property	tree rules
4	test	to-infinitive	the stream not said here				tree rules
5	swift	present	the stream not said here				tree rules
6	is a	past		the current			tree rules
7	break	past	stream	a branch		from a tree	vn split-23.2 «NP V NP PP.co-patient»: agent=Agent branch=Patient from tree=Co-Patient
8	throw in	past	stream not said here	hut			vn throw-17.1-1-1 «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.

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