The Brown Fairy Book, The Brown Fairy Book, part 7, sentence 6
He could not help feeling frightened, but he hated giving up anything that he had once undertaken, and, fastening the ball on his right foot, he ventured on the river.
Who acts: sight · What happens: not help, feel, frighten, hate, give up, undertake · To what, where: anything, ball, river
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 (sight), 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 | He | he | PRON | Case=Nom Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs | 4 help | nsubj |
| 2 | could | could | AUX | VerbForm=Fin | 4 help | aux |
| 3 | not | not | PART | Polarity=Neg | 4 help | advmod |
| 4 | help | help | VERB | VerbForm=Inf | root | root |
| 5 | feeling | feel | VERB | VerbForm=Ger | 4 help | xcomp |
| 6 | frightened | frighten | VERB | Tense=Past VerbForm=Part Voice=Pass | 5 feeling | xcomp |
| 7 | , | , | PUNCT | _ | 10 hated | punct |
| 8 | but | but | CCONJ | _ | 10 hated | cc |
| 9 | he | he | PRON | Case=Nom Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs | 10 hated | nsubj |
| 10 | hated | hate | VERB | Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | 4 help | parataxis |
| 11 | giving | give | VERB | VerbForm=Ger | 10 hated | xcomp |
| 12 | up | up | ADP | _ | 11 giving | compound:prt |
| 13 | anything | anything | PRON | Number=Sing PronType=Ind | 11 giving | obj |
| 14 | that | that | PRON | PronType=Rel | 18 undertaken | nsubj:pass |
| 15 | he | he | PRON | Case=Nom Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs | 18 undertaken | nsubj |
| 16 | had | have | AUX | Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | 18 undertaken | aux |
| 17 | once | once | ADV | NumForm=Word NumType=Mult | 18 undertaken | advmod |
| 18 | undertaken | undertake | VERB | Tense=Past VerbForm=Part Voice=Pass | 13 anything | acl:relcl |
| 19 | , | , | PUNCT | _ | 31 ventured | punct |
| 20 | and | and | CCONJ | _ | 31 ventured | cc |
| 21 | , | , | PUNCT | _ | 22 fastening | punct |
| 22 | fastening | fasten | VERB | VerbForm=Ger | 31 ventured | ccomp |
| 23 | the | the | DET | Definite=Def PronType=Art | 24 ball | det |
| 24 | ball | ball | NOUN | Number=Sing | 22 fastening | obj |
| 25 | on | on | ADP | _ | 28 foot | case |
| 26 | his | his | PRON | Case=Gen Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 Poss=Yes PronType=Prs | 28 foot | nmod:poss |
| 27 | right | right | ADJ | Degree=Pos | 28 foot | amod |
| 28 | foot | foot | NOUN | Number=Sing | 22 fastening | obl |
| 29 | , | , | PUNCT | _ | 22 fastening | punct |
| 30 | he | he | PRON | Case=Nom Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs | 31 ventured | nsubj |
| 31 | ventured | venture | VERB | Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | 10 hated | conj |
| 32 | on | on | ADP | _ | 34 river | case |
| 33 | the | the | DET | Definite=Def PronType=Art | 34 river | det |
| 34 | river | river | NOUN | Number=Sing | 31 ventured | obl |
| 35 | . | . | PUNCT | _ | 4 help | punct |
Pragmatics
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | not help | could | sight | vn help-72.1-1-1 «NP V NP S_INF»: agent=Agent clause=Theme | |||||
| 2 | feel not said to happen | gerund | sight not said here | vn conjecture-29.5-2 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent clause=Theme | |||||
| 3 | frighten | participle | sight not said here | vn amuse-31.1 «NP V ADV-Middle»: agent=Experiencer | |||||
| 4 | hate | past | sight | vn admire-31.2-1 «NP V S_ING»: agent=Experiencer clause=Stimulus | |||||
| 5 | give up not said to happen | gerund | sight not said here | anything | vn resign-10.11-2 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent anything=Source | ||||
| 6 | undertake | past · perfect · passive | once property | vn begin-55.1-1-1 «NP V NP»: subject=Eventuality | |||||
| 7 | fasten | gerund | sight not said here | the ball | on sight's right foot | vn tape-22.4 «NP V NP PP.co-patient»: agent=Agent ball=Patient on foot=Co-Patient | |||
| 8 | venture | past | sight | the river | vn say-37.7-1 «NP V how S»: agent=Agent clause=Topic |
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/pg3282/7/6/