The Lilac Fairy Book, The Lilac Fairy Book, part 12, sentence 8

‘You are very, very stupid, my dear child,’ his mother would sometimes say to him, and then she would add with a laugh, ‘Certainly you will never catch a wolf by the tail.’

Who acts: You, mother · What happens: be, say, add, not catch · To what, where: child, wolf · Speech: someone speaks here

This is a sentence of «The Lilac Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Lilac Fairy Book, part 12. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (You, mother), 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	‘	'	PUNCT	_	7 stupid	punct
2	You	you	PRON	Case=Nom Person=2 PronType=Prs	7 stupid	nsubj
3	are	be	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=2 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	7 stupid	cop
4	very	very	ADV	_	7 stupid	advmod
5	,	,	PUNCT	_	7 stupid	punct
6	very	very	ADV	_	7 stupid	advmod
7	stupid	stupid	ADJ	Degree=Pos	root	root
8	,	,	PUNCT	_	11 child	punct
9	my	my	PRON	Case=Gen Number=Sing Person=1 Poss=Yes PronType=Prs	11 child	nmod:poss
10	dear	dear	ADJ	Degree=Pos	11 child	amod
11	child	child	NOUN	Number=Sing	7 stupid	obl
12	,	,	PUNCT	_	18 say	punct
13	’	'	PUNCT	_	18 say	punct
14	his	his	PRON	Case=Gen Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 Poss=Yes PronType=Prs	15 mother	nmod:poss
15	mother	mother	NOUN	Number=Sing	18 say	nsubj
16	would	would	AUX	VerbForm=Fin	18 say	aux
17	sometimes	sometimes	ADV	PronType=Ind	18 say	advmod
18	say	say	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	7 stupid	parataxis
19	to	to	ADP	_	20 him	case
20	him	he	PRON	Case=Acc Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	18 say	obl
21	,	,	PUNCT	_	26 add	punct
22	and	and	CCONJ	_	26 add	cc
23	then	then	ADV	PronType=Dem	26 add	advmod
24	she	she	PRON	Case=Nom Gender=Fem Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	26 add	nsubj
25	would	would	AUX	VerbForm=Fin	26 add	aux
26	add	add	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	18 say	conj
27	with	with	ADP	_	29 laugh	case
28	a	a	DET	Definite=Ind PronType=Art	29 laugh	det
29	laugh	laugh	NOUN	Number=Sing	26 add	obl
30	,	,	PUNCT	_	36 catch	punct
31	‘	'	PUNCT	_	36 catch	punct
32	Certainly	certainly	ADV	_	36 catch	advmod
33	you	you	PRON	Case=Nom Person=2 PronType=Prs	36 catch	nsubj
34	will	will	AUX	VerbForm=Fin	36 catch	aux
35	never	never	ADV	PronType=Neg	36 catch	advmod
36	catch	catch	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	26 add	conj
37	a	a	DET	Definite=Ind PronType=Art	38 wolf	det
38	wolf	wolf	NOUN	Number=Sing	36 catch	obj
39	by	by	ADP	_	41 tail	case
40	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	41 tail	det
41	tail	tail	NOUN	Number=Sing	36 catch	obl
42	.	.	PUNCT	_	7 stupid	punct
43	’	'	PUNCT	_	7 stupid	punct

Pragmatics

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	when	other	roles by
1	is	present	You				my dear child obl; stupid property	tree rules
2	say speech: assert	would	child's mother		child		sometimes property	vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V PP.recipient S-Quote»: agent=Agent to he=Recipient
3	add speech: assert	would	mother			then	with a laugh	vn mix-22.1-2 «NP V NP PP.co-patient»: agent=Agent with laugh=Co-Patient
4	not catch	future	you	a wolf			by the tail; certainly property	vn get-13.5.1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent wolf=Theme

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/pg3454/12/8/