The Lilac Fairy Book, The Lilac Fairy Book, part 39, sentence 108
But when they inquired of the owl if he knew aught of Mabon he shook his head.
Who acts: men, animal · What happens: inquire, know, shake · To what, where: aught, head
This is a sentence of «The Lilac Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Lilac Fairy Book, part 39. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (men, animal), 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 | But | but | CCONJ | _ | 10 knew | cc |
| 2 | when | when | ADV | PronType=Int | 4 inquired | advmod |
| 3 | they | they | PRON | Case=Nom Number=Plur Person=3 PronType=Prs | 4 inquired | nsubj |
| 4 | inquired | inquire | VERB | Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | 10 knew | advcl |
| 5 | of | of | ADP | _ | 7 owl | case |
| 6 | the | the | DET | Definite=Def PronType=Art | 7 owl | det |
| 7 | owl | owl | NOUN | Number=Sing | 4 inquired | obl |
| 8 | if | if | SCONJ | _ | 10 knew | mark |
| 9 | he | he | PRON | Case=Nom Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs | 10 knew | nsubj |
| 10 | knew | know | VERB | Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | root | root |
| 11 | aught | aught | PRON | PronType=Ind | 10 knew | obj |
| 12 | of | of | ADP | _ | 13 Mabon | case |
| 13 | Mabon | Mabon | PROPN | Number=Sing | 11 aught | nmod |
| 14 | he | he | PRON | Case=Nom Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs | 15 shook | nsubj |
| 15 | shook | shake | VERB | Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | 11 aught | acl:relcl |
| 16 | his | his | PRON | Case=Gen Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 Poss=Yes PronType=Prs | 17 head | nmod:poss |
| 17 | head | head | NOUN | Number=Sing | 15 shook | obj |
| 18 | . | . | PUNCT | _ | 10 knew | punct |
Pragmatics
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | inquire speech: other | past | men = man | of the owl | vn inquire-37.1.2 «NP V PP.recipient how S»: agent=Agent of owl=Recipient | ||||
| 2 | know | past | animal | aught | vn comprehend-87.2-1-1-1 «NP V NP PP.attribute»: agent=Experiencer aught=Stimulus | ||||
| 3 | shake | past | animal | animal's head | vn shake-22.3-2 «NP V NP together»: agent=Agent head=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/pg3454/39/108/