The Lilac Fairy Book, The Lilac Fairy Book, part 10, sentence 44

At length he was told of a young couple who were going to the nearest town to buy all that they needed for setting up house.

Who acts: young couple, shepherds · What happens: tell, go, buy, need, set up · To what, where: Puck, length, nearest town, house · Speech: someone speaks here

This is a sentence of «The Lilac Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Lilac Fairy Book, part 10. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (young couple, shepherds), 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	At	at	ADP	_	2 length	case
2	length	length	NOUN	Number=Sing	5 told	obl
3	he	he	PRON	Case=Nom Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	5 told	nsubj
4	was	be	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	5 told	aux:pass
5	told	tell	VERB	Tense=Past VerbForm=Part Voice=Pass	root	root
6	of	of	ADP	_	9 couple	case
7	a	a	DET	Definite=Ind PronType=Art	9 couple	det
8	young	young	ADJ	Degree=Pos	9 couple	amod
9	couple	couple	NOUN	Number=Sing	5 told	obl
10	who	who	PRON	PronType=Rel	12 going	nsubj
11	were	be	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	12 going	aux
12	going	go	VERB	Tense=Pres VerbForm=Part	9 couple	acl:relcl
13	to	to	ADP	_	16 town	case
14	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	16 town	det
15	nearest	near	ADJ	Degree=Sup	16 town	amod
16	town	town	NOUN	Number=Sing	12 going	obl
17	to	to	PART	_	18 buy	mark
18	buy	buy	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	12 going	advcl
19	all	all	DET	PronType=Tot	22 needed	det:predet
20	that	that	SCONJ	_	22 needed	mark
21	they	they	PRON	Case=Nom Number=Plur Person=3 PronType=Prs	22 needed	nsubj
22	needed	need	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	18 buy	advcl
23	for	for	SCONJ	_	24 setting	mark
24	setting	set	VERB	Tense=Pres VerbForm=Part	22 needed	advcl
25	up	up	ADP	_	24 setting	compound:prt
26	house	house	NOUN	Number=Sing	24 setting	obj
27	.	.	PUNCT	_	5 told	punct

Pragmatics

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	where	other	roles by
1	tell speech: assert	past · passive		Puck	length	of a young couple	vn transfer_mesg-37.1.1-1-1 «NP V NP.recipient»: subject=Recipient
2	go	past · progressive	a young couple		the nearest town		vn escape-51.1-1 «NP V PP.initial_location»: agent=Theme to town=Initial_Location
3	buy	to-infinitive	a young couple not said here				vn accept-77.1 «NP V how S»: agent=Agent
4	need	past	shepherds = shepherd				vn want-32.1-1-1 «NP V NP S_INF»: agent=Pivot
5	set up	gerund	shepherds = shepherd not said here	house			vn other_cos-45.4-1 «NP V NP ADJ»: agent=Patient house=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 Lilac Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Project Gutenberg book 3454 (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/pg3454/10/44/