The Brown Fairy Book, The Brown Fairy Book, part 7, sentence 5
It seemed hardly to touch the water before it was carried away, and even his magic sight could not follow it.
Who acts: It, magic sight, stream · What happens: seem, touch, carry away, not follow, sight · To what, where: water
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 (It, magic sight, 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 | It | it | PRON | Case=Nom Gender=Neut Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs | 2 seemed | nsubj |
| 2 | seemed | seem | VERB | Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | root | root |
| 3 | hardly | hardly | ADV | _ | 2 seemed | advmod |
| 4 | to | to | PART | _ | 5 touch | mark |
| 5 | touch | touch | VERB | VerbForm=Inf | 2 seemed | xcomp |
| 6 | the | the | DET | Definite=Def PronType=Art | 7 water | det |
| 7 | water | water | NOUN | Number=Sing | 5 touch | obj |
| 8 | before | before | SCONJ | _ | 11 carried | mark |
| 9 | it | it | PRON | Case=Nom Gender=Neut Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs | 11 carried | nsubj:pass |
| 10 | was | be | AUX | Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | 11 carried | aux:pass |
| 11 | carried | carry | VERB | Tense=Past VerbForm=Part Voice=Pass | 5 touch | advcl |
| 12 | away | away | ADV | _ | 11 carried | advmod |
| 13 | , | , | PUNCT | _ | 21 follow | punct |
| 14 | and | and | CCONJ | _ | 21 follow | cc |
| 15 | even | even | ADV | _ | 18 sight | advmod |
| 16 | his | his | PRON | Case=Gen Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 Poss=Yes PronType=Prs | 18 sight | nmod:poss |
| 17 | magic | magic | ADJ | Degree=Pos | 18 sight | amod |
| 18 | sight | sight | NOUN | Number=Sing | 21 follow | nsubj |
| 19 | could | could | AUX | VerbForm=Fin | 21 follow | aux |
| 20 | not | not | PART | Polarity=Neg | 21 follow | advmod |
| 21 | follow | follow | VERB | VerbForm=Inf | 2 seemed | parataxis |
| 22 | it | it | PRON | Case=Acc Gender=Neut Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs | 21 follow | obj |
| 23 | . | . | PUNCT | _ | 2 seemed | punct |
Pragmatics
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | seem | past | It | hardly property | vn seem-109-1-1-1 «NP V S_INF»: agent=Theme clause=Attribute | ||||
| 2 | touch | to-infinitive | the water | vn contiguous_location-47.8-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Theme water=Co-Theme | |||||
| 3 | carry away | past · passive | water | away property | vn carry-11.4 «NP V NP»: subject=Theme | ||||
| 4 | not follow | could | stream's magic sight | water | vn chase-51.6 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent it=Theme | ||||
| 5 | sight | stream | nom sight «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/pg3282/7/5/