The Lilac Fairy Book, The Lilac Fairy Book, part 16, sentence 50
But the poor fat officer could do nothing but squat on his knees with his hands together, gasping.
Who acts: poor fat officer · What happens: do, gasp · To what, where: nothing, knees
This is a sentence of «The Lilac Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Lilac Fairy Book, part 16. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (poor fat officer), 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 | But | but | CCONJ | _ | 7 do | cc |
| 2 | the | the | DET | Definite=Def PronType=Art | 5 officer | det |
| 3 | poor | poor | ADJ | Degree=Pos | 5 officer | amod |
| 4 | fat | fat | NOUN | Number=Sing | 5 officer | compound |
| 5 | officer | officer | NOUN | Number=Sing | 7 do | nsubj |
| 6 | could | could | AUX | VerbForm=Fin | 7 do | aux |
| 7 | do | do | VERB | VerbForm=Inf | root | root |
| 8 | nothing | nothing | PRON | Number=Sing PronType=Neg | 7 do | obj |
| 9 | but | but | CCONJ | _ | 10 squat | cc |
| 10 | squat | squat | NOUN | Number=Sing | 8 nothing | conj |
| 11 | on | on | ADP | _ | 13 knees | case |
| 12 | his | his | PRON | Case=Gen Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 Poss=Yes PronType=Prs | 13 knees | nmod:poss |
| 13 | knees | knee | NOUN | Number=Plur | 8 nothing | nmod |
| 14 | with | with | ADP | _ | 16 hands | case |
| 15 | his | his | PRON | Case=Gen Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 Poss=Yes PronType=Prs | 16 hands | nmod:poss |
| 16 | hands | hand | NOUN | Number=Plur | 7 do | obl |
| 17 | together | together | ADV | _ | 7 do | advmod |
| 18 | , | , | PUNCT | _ | 19 gasping | punct |
| 19 | gasping | gasp | VERB | Tense=Pres VerbForm=Part | 7 do | advcl |
| 20 | . | . | PUNCT | _ | 7 do | punct |
Pragmatics
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | do | could | the poor fat officer | nothing | officer's knees | with officer's hands; together property | vn act-114-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent nothing=Eventuality | ||
| 2 | gasp | gerund | the poor fat officer not said here | vn manner_speaking-37.3 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
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/pg3454/16/50/