The Lilac Fairy Book, The Lilac Fairy Book, part 4, sentence 82

The prince was certainly not the least curious among them; but he was a cautious young man, and, as he prepared to open the chest himself, he bade all but a few stand back, and these few to draw their swords, so as to be prepared in case the chest should hold some evil beast, or djinn, or giant.

Who acts: prince, few, these, chest · What happens: not be, be, prepare, open, bade, stand back · To what, where: cautious young man, chest, bade, swords, evil beast, case

This is a sentence of «The Lilac Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Lilac Fairy Book, part 4. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (prince, few, these, chest), 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 prince	det
2	prince	prince	NOUN	Number=Sing	8 curious	nsubj
3	was	be	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	8 curious	cop
4	certainly	certainly	ADV	_	8 curious	advmod
5	not	not	PART	Polarity=Neg	8 curious	advmod
6	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	8 curious	det
7	least	least	ADV	Degree=Sup	8 curious	advmod
8	curious	curious	ADJ	Degree=Pos	root	root
9	among	among	ADP	_	10 them	case
10	them	they	PRON	Case=Acc Number=Plur Person=3 PronType=Prs	8 curious	obl
11	;	;	PUNCT	_	18 man	punct
12	but	but	CCONJ	_	18 man	cc
13	he	he	PRON	Case=Nom Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	18 man	nsubj
14	was	be	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	18 man	cop
15	a	a	DET	Definite=Ind PronType=Art	18 man	det
16	cautious	cautious	ADJ	Degree=Pos	18 man	amod
17	young	young	ADJ	Degree=Pos	18 man	amod
18	man	man	NOUN	Number=Sing	8 curious	conj
19	,	,	PUNCT	_	24 prepared	punct
20	and	and	CCONJ	_	24 prepared	cc
21	,	,	PUNCT	_	20 and	punct
22	as	as	SCONJ	_	24 prepared	mark
23	he	he	PRON	Case=Nom Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	24 prepared	nsubj
24	prepared	prepare	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	8 curious	parataxis
25	to	to	PART	_	26 open	mark
26	open	open	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	24 prepared	xcomp
27	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	28 chest	det
28	chest	chest	NOUN	Number=Sing	26 open	obj
29	himself	himself	PRON	Case=Acc Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs Reflex=Yes	26 open	obl:unmarked
30	,	,	PUNCT	_	32 bade	punct
31	he	he	PRON	Case=Nom Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	32 bade	nsubj
32	bade	bade	NOUN	Number=Sing	8 curious	conj
33	all	all	ADV	_	37 stand	advmod
34	but	but	CCONJ	_	37 stand	cc
35	a	a	DET	Definite=Ind PronType=Art	36 few	det
36	few	few	ADJ	Degree=Pos	37 stand	nsubj
37	stand	stand	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	32 bade	acl:relcl
38	back	back	ADV	_	37 stand	advmod
39	,	,	PUNCT	_	42 few	punct
40	and	and	CCONJ	_	42 few	cc
41	these	this	PRON	Number=Plur PronType=Dem	42 few	nsubj
42	few	few	ADJ	Degree=Pos	8 curious	conj
43	to	to	PART	_	44 draw	mark
44	draw	draw	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	42 few	csubj
45	their	their	PRON	Case=Gen Number=Plur Person=3 Poss=Yes PronType=Prs	46 swords	nmod:poss
46	swords	sword	NOUN	Number=Plur	44 draw	obj
47	,	,	PUNCT	_	52 prepared	punct
48	so	so	ADV	_	52 prepared	advmod
49	as	as	SCONJ	_	52 prepared	mark
50	to	to	PART	_	52 prepared	mark
51	be	be	AUX	VerbForm=Inf	52 prepared	cop
52	prepared	prepared	ADJ	Degree=Pos	8 curious	parataxis
53	in	in	ADP	_	54 case	case
54	case	case	NOUN	Number=Sing	58 hold	obl
55	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	56 chest	det
56	chest	chest	NOUN	Number=Sing	58 hold	nsubj
57	should	should	AUX	VerbForm=Fin	58 hold	aux
58	hold	hold	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	52 prepared	parataxis
59	some	some	DET	PronType=Ind	61 beast	det
60	evil	evil	ADJ	Degree=Pos	61 beast	amod
61	beast	beast	NOUN	Number=Sing	58 hold	obj
62	,	,	PUNCT	_	64 djinn	punct
63	or	or	CCONJ	_	64 djinn	cc
64	djinn	djinn	NOUN	Number=Sing	58 hold	obl
65	,	,	PUNCT	_	67 giant	punct
66	or	or	CCONJ	_	67 giant	cc
67	giant	giant	ADJ	Degree=Pos	64 djinn	amod
68	.	.	PUNCT	_	8 curious	punct

Pragmatics

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	where	other	roles by
1	not is	past	the prince			among banks = bank; certainly, curious, least property	tree rules
2	is a	past	prince	a cautious young man			tree rules
3	prepare	past	prince				vn hire-13.5.3 «NP V NP to be NP»: agent=Agent clause=Attribute
4	open not said to happen	to-infinitive	prince not said here	the chest		man obl:unmarked	vn spatial_configuration-47.6-1 «PP.location V NP»: agent=Location chest=Theme
5	bade		prince				tree rules
6	stand back	present	a few	bade not said here		all property	vn admire-31.2 «NP V NP»: agent=Experiencer bade=Stimulus
7	be		these				tree rules
8	draw	to-infinitive		banks's swords			vn scribble-25.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent sword=Theme
9	is	to-infinitive				prepared property	tree rules
10	hold	should	the chest	some evil beast	case	djinn obl	vn keep-15.2 «NP V NP PP.location»: agent=Agent beast=Theme in case=Location

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/pg3454/4/82/