The Lilac Fairy Book, The Lilac Fairy Book, part 24, sentence 144

The worst of it was that the shadows of the tress were becoming so long in the evening sunlight, the birds were beginning to fly home, and the day was closing in.

Who acts: shadows, birds, day · What happens: become, begin, fly, close in, shadow · To what, where: worst, evening sunlight, tress

This is a sentence of «The Lilac Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Lilac Fairy Book, part 24. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (shadows, birds, day), 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	2 worst	det
2	worst	bad	ADJ	Degree=Sup	13 becoming	obl:unmarked
3	of	of	ADP	_	4 it	case
4	it	it	PRON	Case=Acc Gender=Neut Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	2 worst	obl
5	was	be	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	13 becoming	aux
6	that	that	SCONJ	_	13 becoming	mark
7	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	8 shadows	det
8	shadows	shadow	NOUN	Number=Plur	13 becoming	nsubj
9	of	of	ADP	_	11 tress	case
10	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	11 tress	det
11	tress	tree	NOUN	Number=Plur	8 shadows	nmod
12	were	be	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	13 becoming	aux
13	becoming	become	VERB	Tense=Pres VerbForm=Part	root	root
14	so	so	ADV	_	15 long	advmod
15	long	long	ADV	Degree=Pos	13 becoming	advmod
16	in	in	ADP	_	19 sunlight	case
17	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	19 sunlight	det
18	evening	evening	NOUN	Number=Sing	19 sunlight	compound
19	sunlight	sunlight	NOUN	Number=Sing	13 becoming	obl
20	,	,	PUNCT	_	24 beginning	punct
21	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	22 birds	det
22	birds	bird	NOUN	Number=Plur	24 beginning	nsubj
23	were	be	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	24 beginning	aux
24	beginning	begin	VERB	Tense=Pres VerbForm=Part	13 becoming	conj
25	to	to	PART	_	26 fly	mark
26	fly	fly	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	24 beginning	xcomp
27	home	home	ADV	_	26 fly	advmod
28	,	,	PUNCT	_	33 closing	punct
29	and	and	CCONJ	_	33 closing	cc
30	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	31 day	det
31	day	day	NOUN	Number=Sing	33 closing	nsubj
32	was	be	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	33 closing	aux
33	closing	close	VERB	Tense=Pres VerbForm=Part	13 becoming	conj
34	in	in	ADP	_	33 closing	compound:prt
35	.	.	PUNCT	_	13 becoming	punct

Pragmatics

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	other	roles by
1	become	past · progressive	the shadows of the tress	the worst	in the evening sunlight result; long property	vn become-109.1-1-1 «NP V PP.attribute»: agent=Patient in sunlight=Result
2	begin	past · progressive	the birds			vn begin-55.1-1-1 «NP V S_INF»: agent=Agent clause=Eventuality
3	fly	to-infinitive	the birds not said here		home property	vn spatial_configuration-47.6-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme
4	close in	past · progressive	the day			vn other_cos-45.4 «NP.patient V»: agent=Patient
5	shadow			the tress		nom shadow «state transitive»: of=patient

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/pg3454/24/144/