The Blue Fairy Book, The Tale of a Youth Who Set Out to Learn What Fear Was, sentence 1

A father had two sons, of whom the eldest was clever and bright, and always knew what he was about; but the youngest was stupid, and couldn’t learn or understand anything.

Who acts: father, eldest, youngest · What happens: have, be, know, not learn, understand · To what, where: two sons, anything

This is a sentence of «The Blue Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Tale of a Youth Who Set Out to Learn What Fear Was. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (father, eldest, youngest), 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	A	a	DET	Definite=Ind PronType=Art	2 father	det
2	father	father	NOUN	Number=Sing	3 had	nsubj
3	had	have	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	root	root
4	two	two	NUM	NumForm=Word NumType=Card	5 sons	nummod
5	sons	son	NOUN	Number=Plur	3 had	obj
6	,	,	PUNCT	_	8 whom	punct
7	of	of	ADP	_	8 whom	case
8	whom	whom	PRON	PronType=Rel	3 had	obj
9	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	10 eldest	det
10	eldest	eld	ADJ	Degree=Sup	12 clever	nsubj
11	was	be	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	12 clever	cop
12	clever	clever	ADJ	Degree=Pos	8 whom	parataxis
13	and	and	CCONJ	_	14 bright	cc
14	bright	bright	ADJ	Degree=Pos	12 clever	conj
15	,	,	PUNCT	_	18 knew	punct
16	and	and	CCONJ	_	18 knew	cc
17	always	always	ADV	PronType=Tot	18 knew	advmod
18	knew	know	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	3 had	parataxis
19	what	what	PRON	PronType=Int	18 knew	obj
20	he	he	PRON	Case=Nom Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	21 was	nsubj
21	was	be	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	19 what	acl:relcl
22	about	about	ADV	_	21 was	advmod
23	;	;	PUNCT	_	28 stupid	punct
24	but	but	CCONJ	_	28 stupid	cc
25	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	26 youngest	det
26	youngest	young	ADJ	Degree=Sup	28 stupid	nsubj
27	was	be	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	28 stupid	cop
28	stupid	stupid	ADJ	Degree=Pos	3 had	parataxis
29	,	,	PUNCT	_	33 learn	punct
30	and	and	CCONJ	_	33 learn	cc
31	could	could	AUX	VerbForm=Fin	33 learn	aux
32	n’t	not	PART	Polarity=Neg	33 learn	advmod
33	learn	learn	VERB	Mood=Imp VerbForm=Fin	28 stupid	parataxis
34	or	or	CCONJ	_	35 understand	cc
35	understand	understand	VERB	Mood=Imp VerbForm=Fin	33 learn	conj
36	anything	anything	PRON	Number=Sing PronType=Ind	35 understand	obj
37	.	.	PUNCT	_	3 had	punct

Pragmatics

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	other	roles by
1	have	past	a father	two sons		tree rules
2	is	past	the eldest		clever property	tree rules
3	be		the eldest not said here			tree rules
4	know	past			always property	vn comprehend-87.2-1-1-1 «NP V NP PP.attribute»: agent=Experiencer what=Stimulus
5	is	past	the youngest		stupid property	tree rules
6	not learn	could				vn learn-14-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent
7	understand	infinitive		anything		vn comprehend-87.2-1-1-1 «NP V NP PP.attribute»: agent=Experiencer anything=Stimulus

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/pg503/13/1/