The Blue Fairy Book, Beauty and the Beast, part 1, sentence 66

“Ah!” cried the merchant, “if I were cruel enough to buy my own life at the expense of one of my children’s, what excuse could I invent to bring her here?”

Who acts: merchant, excuse · What happens: cry, be, buy, invent, bring · To what, where: own life, expense, Beast · Speech: someone speaks here

This is a sentence of «The Blue Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Beauty and the Beast, part 1. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (merchant, excuse), 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	“	"	PUNCT	_	5 cried	punct
2	Ah	ah	INTJ	_	5 cried	discourse
3	!	!	PUNCT	_	2 Ah	punct
4	”	"	PUNCT	_	2 Ah	punct
5	cried	cry	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=1 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	root	root
6	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	7 merchant	det
7	merchant	merchant	NOUN	Number=Sing	5 cried	obj
8	,	,	PUNCT	_	13 cruel	punct
9	“	"	PUNCT	_	13 cruel	punct
10	if	if	SCONJ	_	13 cruel	mark
11	I	I	PRON	Case=Nom Number=Sing Person=1 PronType=Prs	13 cruel	nsubj
12	were	be	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	13 cruel	cop
13	cruel	cruel	ADJ	Degree=Pos	5 cried	conj
14	enough	enough	ADV	_	13 cruel	advmod
15	to	to	PART	_	16 buy	mark
16	buy	buy	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	13 cruel	advcl
17	my	my	PRON	Case=Gen Number=Sing Person=1 Poss=Yes PronType=Prs	19 life	nmod:poss
18	own	own	ADJ	Degree=Pos	19 life	amod
19	life	life	NOUN	Number=Sing	16 buy	obj
20	at	at	ADP	_	22 expense	case
21	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	22 expense	det
22	expense	expense	NOUN	Number=Sing	16 buy	obl
23	of	of	ADP	_	24 one	case
24	one	one	NUM	NumForm=Word NumType=Card	22 expense	nmod
25	of	of	ADP	_	27 children	case
26	my	my	PRON	Case=Gen Number=Sing Person=1 Poss=Yes PronType=Prs	27 children	nmod:poss
27	children	child	NOUN	Number=Plur	24 one	nmod
28	’s	's	PART	_	27 children	case
29	,	,	PUNCT	_	34 invent	punct
30	what	what	PRON	PronType=Int	34 invent	obj
31	excuse	excuse	NOUN	Number=Sing	34 invent	nsubj
32	could	could	AUX	VerbForm=Fin	34 invent	aux
33	I	I	PRON	Case=Nom Number=Sing Person=1 PronType=Prs	34 invent	nsubj
34	invent	invent	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	22 expense	conj
35	to	to	PART	_	36 bring	mark
36	bring	bring	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	34 invent	xcomp
37	her	she	PRON	Case=Acc Gender=Fem Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	36 bring	obj
38	here	here	ADV	PronType=Dem	36 bring	advmod
39	?	?	PUNCT	_	5 cried	punct
40	”	"	PUNCT	_	5 cried	punct

Pragmatics

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	other	roles by
1	cry speech: express	past	the merchant					vn manner_speaking-37.3 «NP V»: agent=Agent
2	is a condition, not said to happen, in a quote	past	the merchant = merchant				cruel, enough property	tree rules
3	buy in a quote	to-infinitive	the merchant = merchant not said here	my own life		the expense of one of my children		vn get-13.5.1 «NP V NP PP.source NP.asset»: agent=Agent life=Theme at expense=Asset
4	invent in a quote	could	excuse	the expense of one of my children				tree rules
5	bring in a quote	to-infinitive	excuse not said here		Beast	here		vn bring-11.3-1 «NP V NP ADVP»: agent=Instrument she=Destination

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/pg503/14/66/