The Lilac Fairy Book, The Lilac Fairy Book, part 29, sentence 55
It took him but a short time to cut a road through the blackthorn, and then he laid the axe and the knife under a tree.
Who acts: It, short time, breath · What happens: take, cut, lay · To what, where: breath, road, blackthorn, axe, tree
This is a sentence of «The Lilac Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Lilac Fairy Book, part 29. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (It, short time, breath), 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 | It | it | PRON | Case=Nom Gender=Neut Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs | 2 took | nsubj |
| 2 | took | take | VERB | Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | root | root |
| 3 | him | he | PRON | Case=Acc Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs | 2 took | obj |
| 4 | but | but | CCONJ | _ | 9 cut | cc |
| 5 | a | a | DET | Definite=Ind PronType=Art | 7 time | det |
| 6 | short | short | ADJ | Degree=Pos | 7 time | amod |
| 7 | time | time | NOUN | Number=Sing | 9 cut | nsubj |
| 8 | to | to | PART | _ | 9 cut | mark |
| 9 | cut | cut | VERB | VerbForm=Inf | 2 took | conj |
| 10 | a | a | DET | Definite=Ind PronType=Art | 11 road | det |
| 11 | road | road | NOUN | Number=Sing | 9 cut | obj |
| 12 | through | through | ADP | _ | 14 blackthorn | case |
| 13 | the | the | DET | Definite=Def PronType=Art | 14 blackthorn | det |
| 14 | blackthorn | blackthorn | NOUN | Number=Sing | 9 cut | obl |
| 15 | , | , | PUNCT | _ | 19 laid | punct |
| 16 | and | and | CCONJ | _ | 19 laid | cc |
| 17 | then | then | ADV | PronType=Dem | 19 laid | advmod |
| 18 | he | he | PRON | Case=Nom Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs | 19 laid | nsubj |
| 19 | laid | lay | VERB | Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | 2 took | conj |
| 20 | the | the | DET | Definite=Def PronType=Art | 21 axe | det |
| 21 | axe | axe | NOUN | Number=Sing | 19 laid | obj |
| 22 | and | and | CCONJ | _ | 24 knife | cc |
| 23 | the | the | DET | Definite=Def PronType=Art | 24 knife | det |
| 24 | knife | knife | NOUN | Number=Sing | 21 axe | conj |
| 25 | under | under | ADP | _ | 27 tree | case |
| 26 | a | a | DET | Definite=Ind PronType=Art | 27 tree | det |
| 27 | tree | tree | NOUN | Number=Sing | 19 laid | obl |
| 28 | . | . | PUNCT | _ | 2 took | punct |
Pragmatics
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | take | past | It | breath | vn bring-11.3 «NP V NP ADVP»: agent=Instrument he=Destination | ||||
| 2 | cut | to-infinitive | a short time | a road | the blackthorn | vn build-26.1-1 «NP.asset V NP»: agent=Asset road=Product | |||
| 3 | lay | past | breath | the axe and the knife | a tree | then | vn put_spatial-9.2 «NP V NP PP.destination»: agent=Agent axe=Theme under tree=Destination |
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/pg3454/29/55/