The Lilac Fairy Book, The Lilac Fairy Book, part 25, sentence 81

The donkey was about to ask some further questions, when she suddenly found herself unable to speak: the time allowed them for conversation was over.

Who acts: donkey, Christian · What happens: be, ask, find, speak, allow · To what, where: further questions, Christian, donkey · Speech: someone speaks here

This is a sentence of «The Lilac Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Lilac Fairy Book, part 25. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (donkey, Christian), 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 donkey	det
2	donkey	donkey	NOUN	Number=Sing	4 about	nsubj
3	was	be	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	4 about	cop
4	about	about	ADJ	Degree=Pos	root	root
5	to	to	PART	_	6 ask	mark
6	ask	ask	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	4 about	xcomp
7	some	some	DET	PronType=Ind	9 questions	det
8	further	further	ADJ	Degree=Pos	9 questions	amod
9	questions	question	NOUN	Number=Plur	6 ask	obj
10	,	,	PUNCT	_	14 found	punct
11	when	when	ADV	PronType=Int	14 found	advmod
12	she	she	PRON	Case=Nom Gender=Fem Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	14 found	nsubj
13	suddenly	suddenly	ADV	_	14 found	advmod
14	found	find	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	4 about	parataxis
15	herself	herself	PRON	Case=Acc Gender=Fem Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs Reflex=Yes	14 found	obj
16	unable	unable	ADJ	Degree=Pos	14 found	xcomp
17	to	to	PART	_	18 speak	mark
18	speak	speak	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	16 unable	xcomp
19	:	:	PUNCT	_	22 allowed	punct
20	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	21 time	det
21	time	time	NOUN	Number=Sing	22 allowed	obl:unmarked
22	allowed	allow	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	4 about	parataxis
23	them	they	PRON	Case=Acc Number=Plur Person=3 PronType=Prs	22 allowed	obj
24	for	for	ADP	_	25 conversation	case
25	conversation	conversation	NOUN	Number=Sing	27 over	obl
26	was	be	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	27 over	cop
27	over	over	ADV	_	22 allowed	advmod
28	.	.	PUNCT	_	4 about	punct

Pragmatics

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	when	other	roles by
1	is	past	the donkey			about property	tree rules
2	ask speech: ask	to-infinitive	the donkey not said here	some further questions			vn inquire-37.1.2 «NP V NP.recipient»: agent=Agent question=Recipient
3	find	past	Christian	Christian		suddenly, unable property	vn discover-84 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent herself=Topic
4	speak speech: other	to-infinitive	Christian not said here				vn talk-37.5 «NP V»: agent=Agent
5	allow	past		donkey	time		vn allow-64.1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent they=Beneficiary
6	is	past				for conversation; over property	tree rules

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/pg3454/25/81/