The Blue Fairy Book, The Tale of a Youth Who Set Out to Learn What Fear Was, sentence 11

The eldest laughed when he heard this, and thought to himself: “Good heavens! what a ninny my brother is! he’ll never come to any good; as the twig is bent, so is the tree inclined.”

Who acts: eldest, father, brother, tree · What happens: laugh, hear, think, be, not come, bend · To what, where: this, father, ninny, good, twig, tree · Speech: someone speaks here

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 (eldest, father, brother, tree), 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 eldest	det
2	eldest	eld	ADJ	Degree=Sup	3 laughed	nsubj
3	laughed	laugh	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	root	root
4	when	when	ADV	PronType=Int	6 heard	advmod
5	he	he	PRON	Case=Nom Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	6 heard	nsubj
6	heard	hear	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	3 laughed	advcl
7	this	this	PRON	Number=Sing PronType=Dem	6 heard	obj
8	,	,	PUNCT	_	10 thought	punct
9	and	and	CCONJ	_	10 thought	cc
10	thought	think	VERB	Tense=Past VerbForm=Part Voice=Pass	3 laughed	parataxis
11	to	to	ADP	_	12 himself	case
12	himself	himself	PRON	Case=Acc Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs Reflex=Yes	10 thought	obl
13	:	:	PUNCT	_	16 heavens	punct
14	“	"	PUNCT	_	16 heavens	punct
15	Good	good	ADJ	Degree=Pos	16 heavens	amod
16	heavens	heaven	NOUN	Number=Plur	10 thought	parataxis
17	!	!	PUNCT	_	16 heavens	punct
18	what	what	PRON	PronType=Int	20 ninny	advmod
19	a	a	DET	Definite=Ind PronType=Art	20 ninny	det
20	ninny	ninny	NOUN	Number=Sing	16 heavens	nmod
21	my	my	PRON	Case=Gen Number=Sing Person=1 Poss=Yes PronType=Prs	22 brother	nmod:poss
22	brother	brother	NOUN	Number=Sing	23 is	nsubj
23	is	be	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	20 ninny	acl:relcl
24	!	!	PUNCT	_	16 heavens	punct
25	he	he	PRON	Case=Nom Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	28 come	nsubj
26	’ll	will	AUX	VerbForm=Fin	28 come	aux
27	never	never	ADV	PronType=Neg	28 come	advmod
28	come	come	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	10 thought	ccomp
29	to	to	ADP	_	31 good	case
30	any	any	DET	PronType=Ind	31 good	det
31	good	good	ADJ	Degree=Pos	28 come	obl
32	;	;	PUNCT	_	37 bent	punct
33	as	as	SCONJ	_	37 bent	mark
34	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	35 twig	det
35	twig	twig	NOUN	Number=Sing	37 bent	nsubj:pass
36	is	be	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	37 bent	aux:pass
37	bent	bend	VERB	Tense=Past VerbForm=Part Voice=Pass	10 thought	conj
38	,	,	PUNCT	_	43 inclined	punct
39	so	so	ADV	_	43 inclined	advmod
40	is	be	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	42 tree	cop
41	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	42 tree	det
42	tree	tree	NOUN	Number=Sing	43 inclined	nsubj
43	inclined	incline	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	3 laughed	conj
44	.	.	PUNCT	_	3 laughed	punct
45	”	"	PUNCT	_	3 laughed	punct

Pragmatics

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	roles by
1	laugh	past	the eldest				vn nonverbal_expression-40.2 «NP V»: agent=Agent
2	hear	past	father	this			vn see-30.1-1-1 «NP V S»: agent=Experiencer this=Stimulus
3	think speech: other	participle			father		vn consider-29.9-2 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent clause=Theme
4	be in a quote	present	my brother	a ninny not said here			vn representation-110.1 «NP V NP»: agent=Pivot ninny=Theme
5	not come in a quote	future	father			any good	vn escape-51.1-1 «NP V PP.initial_location»: agent=Theme to good=Initial_Location
6	bend in a quote	present · passive		the twig			vn knead-26.5 «NP V NP.material»: subject=Material
7	is a in a quote	present		the tree			tree rules
8	incline in a quote	past	the tree				vn addict-96 «NP V NP PP.Theme»: agent=Agent

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.

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