The Lilac Fairy Book, The Lilac Fairy Book, part 9, sentence 27
Then a low sound was heard, as of the edge of a knife touching a silver plate, and the king was so startled that he nearly dropped the knob.
Who acts: knife, king · What happens: hear, touch, startle, drop · To what, where: low sound, silver plate, king, knob
This is a sentence of «The Lilac Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Lilac Fairy Book, part 9. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (knife, king), 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 | Then | then | ADV | PronType=Dem | 6 heard | advmod |
| 2 | a | a | DET | Definite=Ind PronType=Art | 4 sound | det |
| 3 | low | low | ADJ | Degree=Pos | 4 sound | amod |
| 4 | sound | sound | NOUN | Number=Sing | 6 heard | nsubj:pass |
| 5 | was | be | AUX | Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | 6 heard | aux:pass |
| 6 | heard | hear | VERB | Tense=Past VerbForm=Part Voice=Pass | root | root |
| 7 | , | , | PUNCT | _ | 11 edge | punct |
| 8 | as | as | ADP | ExtPos=ADP | 11 edge | case |
| 9 | of | of | ADP | _ | 8 as | fixed |
| 10 | the | the | DET | Definite=Def PronType=Art | 11 edge | det |
| 11 | edge | edge | NOUN | Number=Sing | 6 heard | conj |
| 12 | of | of | ADP | _ | 14 knife | case |
| 13 | a | a | DET | Definite=Ind PronType=Art | 14 knife | det |
| 14 | knife | knife | NOUN | Number=Sing | 11 edge | nmod |
| 15 | touching | touch | VERB | VerbForm=Ger | 14 knife | acl |
| 16 | a | a | DET | Definite=Ind PronType=Art | 18 plate | det |
| 17 | silver | silver | NOUN | Number=Sing | 18 plate | compound |
| 18 | plate | plate | NOUN | Number=Sing | 15 touching | obj |
| 19 | , | , | PUNCT | _ | 25 startled | punct |
| 20 | and | and | CCONJ | _ | 25 startled | cc |
| 21 | the | the | DET | Definite=Def PronType=Art | 22 king | det |
| 22 | king | king | NOUN | Number=Sing | 25 startled | nsubj:pass |
| 23 | was | be | AUX | Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | 25 startled | aux:pass |
| 24 | so | so | ADV | _ | 25 startled | advmod |
| 25 | startled | startle | VERB | Tense=Past VerbForm=Part Voice=Pass | 6 heard | conj |
| 26 | that | that | SCONJ | _ | 29 dropped | mark |
| 27 | he | he | PRON | Case=Nom Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs | 29 dropped | nsubj |
| 28 | nearly | nearly | ADV | _ | 29 dropped | advmod |
| 29 | dropped | drop | VERB | Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | 25 startled | advcl |
| 30 | the | the | DET | Definite=Def PronType=Art | 31 knob | det |
| 31 | knob | knob | NOUN | Number=Sing | 29 dropped | obj |
| 32 | . | . | PUNCT | _ | 6 heard | punct |
Pragmatics
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | hear | past · passive | a low sound | then | vn see-30.1-1-1 «NP V S»: subject=Stimulus | ||||
| 2 | touch | gerund | a knife not said here | a silver plate | vn contiguous_location-47.8-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Theme plate=Co-Theme | ||||
| 3 | startle | past · passive | the king | vn amuse-31.1 «NP V NP»: subject=Experiencer | |||||
| 4 | drop | past | king | the knob | nearly property | vn put_direction-9.4 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent knob=Theme |
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/pg3454/9/27/