The Blue Fairy Book, Why the Sea Is Salt, sentence 3
It was by no means the first time that the brother had been forced to give something to him, and he was not better pleased at being asked now than he generally was.
Who acts: bite, brother, Christmas · What happens: be, force, give, ask · To what, where: brother, something, Christmas
This is a sentence of «The Blue Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Why the Sea Is Salt. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (bite, brother, Christmas), 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 | It | it | PRON | Case=Nom Gender=Neut Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs | 5 means | nsubj |
| 2 | was | be | AUX | Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | 5 means | cop |
| 3 | by | by | ADP | _ | 4 no | case |
| 4 | no | no | DET | PronType=Neg | 5 means | obl |
| 5 | means | mean | VERB | Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin | root | root |
| 6 | the | the | DET | Definite=Def PronType=Art | 8 time | det |
| 7 | first | first | ADJ | Degree=Pos NumForm=Word NumType=Ord | 8 time | amod |
| 8 | time | time | NOUN | Number=Sing | 5 means | obj |
| 9 | that | that | PRON | PronType=Rel | 14 forced | obj |
| 10 | the | the | DET | Definite=Def PronType=Art | 11 brother | det |
| 11 | brother | brother | NOUN | Number=Sing | 14 forced | nsubj:pass |
| 12 | had | have | AUX | Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | 14 forced | aux |
| 13 | been | be | AUX | Tense=Past VerbForm=Part | 14 forced | aux:pass |
| 14 | forced | force | VERB | Tense=Past VerbForm=Part Voice=Pass | 8 time | acl:relcl |
| 15 | to | to | PART | _ | 16 give | mark |
| 16 | give | give | VERB | VerbForm=Inf | 14 forced | xcomp |
| 17 | something | something | PRON | Number=Sing PronType=Ind | 16 give | obj |
| 18 | to | to | ADP | _ | 19 him | case |
| 19 | him | he | PRON | Case=Acc Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs | 16 give | obl |
| 20 | , | , | PUNCT | _ | 26 pleased | punct |
| 21 | and | and | CCONJ | _ | 26 pleased | cc |
| 22 | he | he | PRON | Case=Nom Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs | 26 pleased | nsubj |
| 23 | was | be | AUX | Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | 26 pleased | cop |
| 24 | not | not | PART | Polarity=Neg | 25 better | advmod |
| 25 | better | well | ADV | Degree=Cmp | 26 pleased | advmod |
| 26 | pleased | pleased | ADJ | Degree=Pos | 5 means | conj |
| 27 | at | at | SCONJ | _ | 29 asked | mark |
| 28 | being | be | AUX | Tense=Pres VerbForm=Part | 29 asked | aux:pass |
| 29 | asked | ask | VERB | Tense=Past VerbForm=Part Voice=Pass | 26 pleased | advcl |
| 30 | now | now | ADV | PronType=Dem | 29 asked | advmod |
| 31 | than | than | SCONJ | _ | 34 was | mark |
| 32 | he | he | PRON | Case=Nom Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs | 34 was | nsubj |
| 33 | generally | generally | ADV | _ | 34 was | advmod |
| 34 | was | be | VERB | Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | 30 now | advcl |
| 35 | . | . | PUNCT | _ | 5 means | punct |
Pragmatics
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | is | past | bite | time | by no; mean property | tree rules | |||
| 2 | force | past · perfect · passive | the brother | tree rules | |||||
| 3 | give | to-infinitive | the brother not said here | something | Christmas | vn give-13.1-1 «NP V NP PP.recipient»: agent=Agent something=Theme to he=Recipient | |||
| 4 | is | past | Christmas | pleased, well property | tree rules | ||||
| 5 | ask speech: ask | gerund · passive | Christmas not said here | now | vn inquire-37.1.2 «NP V» | ||||
| 6 | be | past | Christmas | generally property | vn exist-47.1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
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/pg503/20/3/