Old Indian Legends, The Toad and the Boy, sentence 85
The big, ugly toad, looking at her pudgy children, said: “The eldest is always best.”
Who acts: big ugly toad · What happens: look, say, be · Speech: someone speaks here
This is a sentence of «Old Indian Legends» by Zitkala-Sa, The Toad and the Boy. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (big ugly toad), 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 | 5 toad | det |
| 2 | big | big | ADJ | Degree=Pos | 5 toad | amod |
| 3 | , | , | PUNCT | _ | 2 big | punct |
| 4 | ugly | ugly | ADJ | Degree=Pos | 5 toad | amod |
| 5 | toad | toad | NOUN | Number=Sing | 13 said | nsubj |
| 6 | , | , | PUNCT | _ | 7 looking | punct |
| 7 | looking | look | VERB | VerbForm=Ger | 5 toad | acl |
| 8 | at | at | ADP | _ | 11 children | case |
| 9 | her | her | PRON | Case=Gen Gender=Fem Number=Sing Person=3 Poss=Yes PronType=Prs | 11 children | nmod:poss |
| 10 | pudgy | pudgy | ADJ | Degree=Pos | 11 children | amod |
| 11 | children | child | NOUN | Number=Plur | 7 looking | obl |
| 12 | , | , | PUNCT | _ | 5 toad | punct |
| 13 | said | say | VERB | Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | root | root |
| 14 | : | : | PUNCT | _ | 17 eldest | punct |
| 15 | “ | " | PUNCT | _ | 17 eldest | punct |
| 16 | The | the | DET | Definite=Def PronType=Art | 17 eldest | det |
| 17 | eldest | eld | ADJ | Degree=Sup | 13 said | ccomp |
| 18 | is | be | AUX | Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin | 20 best | cop |
| 19 | always | always | ADV | PronType=Tot | 20 best | advmod |
| 20 | best | well | ADV | Degree=Sup | 17 eldest | advmod |
| 21 | . | . | PUNCT | _ | 13 said | punct |
| 22 | ” | " | PUNCT | _ | 13 said | punct |
Pragmatics
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | look | gerund | the big ugly toad not said here | at mother's pudgy children | vn peer-30.3 «NP V PP.theme»: agent=Agent at child=Theme | ||||
| 2 | say speech: assert | past | the big ugly toad | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent | |||||
| 3 | is in a quote | present | always, well property | tree rules |
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: «Old Indian Legends» by Zitkala-Sa, Project Gutenberg book 338 (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/pg338/12/85/