The Lilac Fairy Book, The Lilac Fairy Book, part 33, sentence 87

‘The birds,’ he said, ‘continue flying until they reach a field of corn, and the bees do not stop unless they find the honey-giving flowers, and why should a man have less sense than they?

Who acts: birds, bees, man · What happens: say, continue, fly, reach, not stop, find · To what, where: field, giving flowers, less sense · Speech: someone speaks here

This is a sentence of «The Lilac Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Lilac Fairy Book, part 33. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (birds, bees, man), 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	‘	'	PUNCT	_	3 birds	punct
2	The	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	3 birds	det
3	birds	bird	NOUN	Number=Plur	7 said	nsubj
4	,	,	PUNCT	_	3 birds	punct
5	’	'	PUNCT	_	3 birds	punct
6	he	he	PRON	Case=Nom Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	7 said	nsubj
7	said	say	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	root	root
8	,	,	PUNCT	_	10 continue	punct
9	‘	'	PUNCT	_	10 continue	punct
10	continue	continue	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	7 said	ccomp
11	flying	fly	VERB	VerbForm=Ger	10 continue	xcomp
12	until	until	SCONJ	_	14 reach	mark
13	they	they	PRON	Case=Nom Number=Plur Person=3 PronType=Prs	14 reach	nsubj
14	reach	reach	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	11 flying	advcl
15	a	a	DET	Definite=Ind PronType=Art	16 field	det
16	field	field	NOUN	Number=Sing	14 reach	obj
17	of	of	ADP	_	18 corn	case
18	corn	corn	NOUN	Number=Sing	16 field	nmod
19	,	,	PUNCT	_	25 stop	punct
20	and	and	CCONJ	_	25 stop	cc
21	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	22 bees	det
22	bees	bee	NOUN	Number=Plur	25 stop	nsubj
23	do	do	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	25 stop	aux
24	not	not	PART	Polarity=Neg	25 stop	advmod
25	stop	stop	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	7 said	ccomp
26	unless	unless	SCONJ	_	28 find	mark
27	they	they	PRON	Case=Nom Number=Plur Person=3 PronType=Prs	28 find	nsubj
28	find	find	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	25 stop	advcl
29	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	33 flowers	det
30	honey	honey	NOUN	Number=Sing	32 giving	compound
31	-	-	PUNCT	_	30 honey	punct
32	giving	give	VERB	VerbForm=Ger	33 flowers	amod
33	flowers	flower	NOUN	Number=Plur	28 find	obj
34	,	,	PUNCT	_	40 have	punct
35	and	and	CCONJ	_	40 have	cc
36	why	why	ADV	PronType=Int	40 have	advmod
37	should	should	AUX	VerbForm=Fin	40 have	aux
38	a	a	DET	Definite=Ind PronType=Art	39 man	det
39	man	man	NOUN	Number=Sing	40 have	nsubj
40	have	have	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	7 said	conj
41	less	less	ADJ	Degree=Cmp	42 sense	amod
42	sense	sense	NOUN	Number=Sing	40 have	obj
43	than	than	ADP	_	44 they	case
44	they	they	PRON	Case=Nom Number=Plur Person=3 PronType=Prs	42 sense	nmod
45	?	?	PUNCT	_	7 said	punct

Pragmatics

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	other	roles by
1	say speech: assert	past	the birds			vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent clause=Topic
2	continue	infinitive				vn continue-55.3 «NP V S_INF»: agent=Agent clause=Eventuality
3	fly	gerund				vn spatial_configuration-47.6-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme
4	reach	present	birds = bird	a field of corn		vn body_motion-49.2-1-1 «NP V NP ADV»: agent=Agent field=Theme
5	not stop	present · do-support	the bees			vn stop-55.4-1-1 «NP.eventuality V»: agent=Eventuality
6	find a condition, not said to happen	present	bees = bee	the giving flowers		vn discover-84 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent flower=Topic
7	give	gerund				vn break_down-45.8 «NP V»: agent=Patient
8	have	should	a man	less sense	than bees = bee	vn birth-28.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent sense=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/pg3454/33/87/