The Lilac Fairy Book, The Lilac Fairy Book, part 17, sentence 68

Perhaps you think that fishes were always fishes, and never lived anywhere except in the water, but if you went to Australia and talked to the black people in the sandy desert in the centre of the country, you would learn something quite different.

Who acts: you, fishes · What happens: think, be, not live, go, talk, learn · To what, where: Australia, sandy desert, something

This is a sentence of «The Lilac Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Lilac Fairy Book, part 17. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (you, fishes), 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	Perhaps	perhaps	ADV	_	3 think	advmod
2	you	you	PRON	Case=Nom Person=2 PronType=Prs	3 think	nsubj
3	think	think	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=2 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	root	root
4	that	that	SCONJ	_	8 fishes	mark
5	fishes	fish	NOUN	Number=Plur	8 fishes	nsubj
6	were	be	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	8 fishes	cop
7	always	always	ADV	PronType=Tot	8 fishes	advmod
8	fishes	fish	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	3 think	advcl
9	,	,	PUNCT	_	12 lived	punct
10	and	and	CCONJ	_	12 lived	cc
11	never	never	ADV	PronType=Neg	12 lived	advmod
12	lived	live	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=2 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	3 think	conj
13	anywhere	anywhere	ADV	PronType=Ind	12 lived	advmod
14	except	except	ADP	_	17 water	case
15	in	in	ADP	_	17 water	case
16	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	17 water	det
17	water	water	NOUN	Number=Sing	12 lived	obl
18	,	,	PUNCT	_	22 went	punct
19	but	but	CCONJ	_	22 went	cc
20	if	if	SCONJ	_	22 went	mark
21	you	you	PRON	Case=Nom Person=2 PronType=Prs	22 went	nsubj
22	went	go	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=2 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	3 think	parataxis
23	to	to	ADP	_	24 Australia	case
24	Australia	Australia	PROPN	Number=Sing	22 went	obl
25	and	and	CCONJ	_	26 talked	cc
26	talked	talk	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=2 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	22 went	conj
27	to	to	ADP	_	30 people	case
28	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	30 people	det
29	black	black	ADJ	Degree=Pos	30 people	amod
30	people	people	NOUN	Number=Plur	26 talked	obl
31	in	in	ADP	_	34 desert	case
32	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	34 desert	det
33	sandy	sandy	ADJ	Degree=Pos	34 desert	amod
34	desert	desert	NOUN	Number=Sing	26 talked	obl
35	in	in	ADP	_	37 centre	case
36	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	37 centre	det
37	centre	centre	NOUN	Number=Sing	34 desert	nmod
38	of	of	ADP	_	40 country	case
39	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	40 country	det
40	country	country	NOUN	Number=Sing	37 centre	nmod
41	,	,	PUNCT	_	44 learn	punct
42	you	you	PRON	Case=Nom Person=2 PronType=Prs	44 learn	nsubj
43	would	would	AUX	VerbForm=Fin	44 learn	aux
44	learn	learn	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	22 went	conj
45	something	something	PRON	Number=Sing PronType=Ind	44 learn	obj
46	quite	quite	ADV	_	47 different	advmod
47	different	different	ADJ	Degree=Pos	45 something	amod
48	.	.	PUNCT	_	3 think	punct

Pragmatics

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	where	other	roles by
1	think speech: other	present	you			perhaps property	vn focus-87.1-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent
2	is	past	fishes			always, fish property	tree rules
3	not live	past	you not said here			except the water; anywhere property	vn exist-47.1-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme
4	go a condition, not said to happen	past	you		Australia		vn escape-51.1-1 «NP V PP.initial_location»: agent=Theme to australia=Initial_Location
5	talk	past	you not said here		the sandy desert in the centre of the country	to the black people	vn talk-37.5 «NP V PP.co-agent»: agent=Agent to people=Co-Agent
6	learn	would	you	something			vn learn-14-2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent something=Topic

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/pg3454/17/68/