The Blue Fairy Book, The Master-maid, part 3, sentence 6

But all at once, just as they were starting, the bottom of the coach fell in pieces.

Who acts: brother, bottom · What happens: start, fall · To what, where: bottom, pieces

This is a sentence of «The Blue Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Master-maid, part 3. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (brother, bottom), 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	But	but	CCONJ	_	10 starting	cc
2	all	all	ADV	_	10 starting	advmod
3	at	at	ADP	_	4 once	case
4	once	once	ADV	NumForm=Word NumType=Mult	2 all	obl
5	,	,	PUNCT	_	10 starting	punct
6	just	just	ADV	_	10 starting	advmod
7	as	as	SCONJ	_	10 starting	mark
8	they	they	PRON	Case=Nom Number=Plur Person=3 PronType=Prs	10 starting	nsubj
9	were	be	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	10 starting	aux
10	starting	start	VERB	Tense=Pres VerbForm=Part	root	root
11	,	,	PUNCT	_	13 bottom	punct
12	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	13 bottom	det
13	bottom	bottom	NOUN	Number=Sing	10 starting	obl
14	of	of	ADP	_	16 coach	case
15	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	16 coach	det
16	coach	coach	NOUN	Number=Sing	17 fell	obl
17	fell	fall	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	13 bottom	acl:relcl
18	in	in	ADP	_	19 pieces	case
19	pieces	piece	NOUN	Number=Plur	17 fell	obl
20	.	.	PUNCT	_	10 starting	punct

Pragmatics

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	start	past · progressive	brother	the bottom				all property	vn begin-55.1-1-1 «NP.eventuality V»: agent=Eventuality
2	fall	past	the bottom not said here			pieces		of the coach	vn occur-48.3 «NP V PP»: agent=Theme in piece=Location

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/pg503/19/6/