The Brown Fairy Book, The Brown Fairy Book, part 8, sentence 77

The sun was hot, but they liked heat, and as they went they ran races and tried who could hurl his spear the farthest, or was cleverest in throwing a strange weapon called a boomerang, which always returns to the thrower.

Who acts: sun, parents, strange weapon, boomerang · What happens: be, like, go, run, try, hurl · To what, where: heat, races, spear, strange weapon, boomerang · Speech: someone speaks here

This is a sentence of «The Brown Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Brown Fairy Book, part 8. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (sun, parents, strange weapon, boomerang), 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 sun	det
2	sun	sun	NOUN	Number=Sing	4 hot	nsubj
3	was	be	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	4 hot	cop
4	hot	hot	ADJ	Degree=Pos	root	root
5	,	,	PUNCT	_	8 liked	punct
6	but	but	CCONJ	_	8 liked	cc
7	they	they	PRON	Case=Nom Number=Plur Person=3 PronType=Prs	8 liked	nsubj
8	liked	like	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	4 hot	conj
9	heat	heat	NOUN	Number=Sing	8 liked	obj
10	,	,	PUNCT	_	14 went	punct
11	and	and	CCONJ	_	14 went	cc
12	as	as	SCONJ	_	14 went	mark
13	they	they	PRON	Case=Nom Number=Plur Person=3 PronType=Prs	14 went	nsubj
14	went	go	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	4 hot	parataxis
15	they	they	PRON	Case=Nom Number=Plur Person=3 PronType=Prs	16 ran	nsubj
16	ran	run	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	14 went	conj
17	races	race	NOUN	Number=Plur	16 ran	obj
18	and	and	CCONJ	_	19 tried	cc
19	tried	try	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	14 went	conj
20	who	who	PRON	PronType=Rel	22 hurl	nsubj
21	could	could	AUX	VerbForm=Fin	22 hurl	aux
22	hurl	hurl	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	19 tried	xcomp
23	his	his	PRON	Case=Gen Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 Poss=Yes PronType=Prs	24 spear	nmod:poss
24	spear	spear	NOUN	Number=Sing	22 hurl	obj
25	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	26 farthest	det
26	farthest	far	ADJ	Degree=Sup	22 hurl	obj
27	,	,	PUNCT	_	30 cleverest	punct
28	or	or	CCONJ	_	30 cleverest	cc
29	was	be	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	30 cleverest	cop
30	cleverest	clever	ADJ	Degree=Sup	26 farthest	conj
31	in	in	SCONJ	_	32 throwing	mark
32	throwing	throw	VERB	Tense=Pres VerbForm=Part	30 cleverest	advcl
33	a	a	DET	Definite=Ind PronType=Art	35 weapon	det
34	strange	strange	ADJ	Degree=Pos	35 weapon	amod
35	weapon	weapon	NOUN	Number=Sing	32 throwing	obj
36	called	call	VERB	Tense=Past VerbForm=Part Voice=Pass	35 weapon	acl
37	a	a	DET	Definite=Ind PronType=Art	38 boomerang	det
38	boomerang	boomerang	NOUN	Number=Sing	36 called	obj
39	,	,	PUNCT	_	42 returns	punct
40	which	which	PRON	PronType=Rel	42 returns	nsubj
41	always	always	ADV	PronType=Tot	42 returns	advmod
42	returns	return	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	38 boomerang	acl:relcl
43	to	to	ADP	_	45 thrower	case
44	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	45 thrower	det
45	thrower	thrower	NOUN	Number=Sing	42 returns	obl
46	.	.	PUNCT	_	4 hot	punct

Pragmatics

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	other	roles by
1	is	past	the sun		hot property	tree rules
2	like	past	parents = parent	heat		vn want-32.1-1-1 «NP V NP ADV»: agent=Pivot heat=Theme
3	go	past	parents = parent			vn disappearance-48.2-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme
4	run	past	parents = parent	races		vn run-51.3.2-2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Theme race=Trajectory
5	try	past	parents = parent not said here			vn try-61.1 «NP V S_ING»: agent=Agent clause=Eventuality
6	hurl not said to happen	could		man's spear		vn throw-17.1-1 «NP V NP-Dative NP»: agent=Agent spear=Destination far=Theme
7	is	past			clever property	tree rules
8	throw	gerund		a strange weapon		vn throw-17.1-1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent weapon=Theme
9	call	participle	a strange weapon not said here	a boomerang		vn initiate_communication-37.4.2-1 «NP V NP.recipient»: agent=Agent boomerang=Recipient
10	return	present	a boomerang		to the thrower result; always property	vn convert-26.6.2-1 «NP V S_ING»: agent=Patient to thrower=Result

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/pg3282/8/77/