The Blue Fairy Book, Cinderella, or the Little Glass Slipper, sentence 54

The King himself, old as he was, could not help watching her, and telling the Queen softly that it was a long time since he had seen so beautiful and lovely a creature.

Who acts: King, commonly · What happens: be, not help, watch, tell, see · To what, where: silence, Queen, long time · Speech: someone speaks here

This is a sentence of «The Blue Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Cinderella, or the Little Glass Slipper. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (King, commonly), 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 King	det
2	King	King	PROPN	Number=Sing	12 help	nsubj
3	himself	himself	PRON	Case=Acc Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs Reflex=Yes	2 King	nmod
4	,	,	PUNCT	_	5 old	punct
5	old	old	ADJ	Degree=Pos	2 King	amod
6	as	as	SCONJ	_	8 was	mark
7	he	he	PRON	Case=Nom Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	8 was	nsubj
8	was	be	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	5 old	advcl
9	,	,	PUNCT	_	2 King	punct
10	could	could	AUX	VerbForm=Fin	12 help	aux
11	not	not	PART	Polarity=Neg	12 help	advmod
12	help	help	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	root	root
13	watching	watch	VERB	VerbForm=Ger	12 help	xcomp
14	her	she	PRON	Case=Acc Gender=Fem Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	13 watching	obj
15	,	,	PUNCT	_	17 telling	punct
16	and	and	CCONJ	_	17 telling	cc
17	telling	tell	VERB	Tense=Pres VerbForm=Part	12 help	advcl
18	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	19 Queen	det
19	Queen	Queen	PROPN	Number=Sing	17 telling	obj
20	softly	softly	ADV	_	17 telling	advmod
21	that	that	SCONJ	_	26 time	mark
22	it	it	PRON	Case=Nom Gender=Neut Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	26 time	nsubj
23	was	be	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	26 time	cop
24	a	a	DET	Definite=Ind PronType=Art	26 time	det
25	long	long	ADJ	Degree=Pos	26 time	amod
26	time	time	NOUN	Number=Sing	17 telling	obl:unmarked
27	since	since	SCONJ	_	30 seen	mark
28	he	he	PRON	Case=Nom Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	30 seen	nsubj
29	had	have	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	30 seen	aux
30	seen	see	VERB	Tense=Past VerbForm=Part	17 telling	ccomp
31	so	so	ADV	_	32 beautiful	advmod
32	beautiful	beautiful	ADJ	Degree=Pos	30 seen	xcomp
33	and	and	CCONJ	_	34 lovely	cc
34	lovely	lovely	ADJ	Degree=Pos	32 beautiful	conj
35	a	a	DET	Definite=Ind PronType=Art	36 creature	det
36	creature	creature	NOUN	Number=Sing	32 beautiful	nsubj
37	.	.	PUNCT	_	12 help	punct

Pragmatics

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	other	roles by
1	be	past	King				vn exist-47.1 «NP V»: agent=Theme
2	not help	could	the King King				vn help-72.1-1-1 «NP V NP S_INF»: agent=Agent clause=Theme
3	watch not said to happen	gerund	the King King not said here	silence			vn assessment-34.1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent she=Theme
4	tell speech: assert	gerund	the King King not said here		the Queen	softly property	vn transfer_mesg-37.1.1-1-1 «NP V NP S_INF»: agent=Agent queen=Recipient clause=Topic
5	is a	past	commonly	a long time			tree rules
6	see	past · perfect	King			beautiful property	vn comprehend-87.2-1-1 «NP V»: agent=Experiencer

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 Blue Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Project Gutenberg book 503 (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/pg503/11/54/