The Blue Fairy Book, Felicia and the Pot of Pinks, sentence 75

“I don’t know how it was that he could speak--I have never heard either of them say a word before, nor have I been able to do it myself until now.”

Who acts: house, ring, either · What happens: not know, be, not hear, say, have, do · To what, where: word, ring · Speech: someone speaks here

This is a sentence of «The Blue Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Felicia and the Pot of Pinks. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (house, ring, either), 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 know	punct
2	I	I	PRON	Case=Nom Number=Sing Person=1 PronType=Prs	5 know	nsubj
3	do	do	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=1 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	5 know	aux
4	n’t	not	PART	Polarity=Neg	5 know	advmod
5	know	know	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	root	root
6	how	how	ADV	PronType=Int	12 speak	advmod
7	it	it	PRON	Case=Nom Gender=Neut Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	12 speak	nsubj
8	was	be	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	12 speak	cop
9	that	that	SCONJ	_	12 speak	mark
10	he	he	PRON	Case=Nom Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	12 speak	nsubj
11	could	could	AUX	VerbForm=Fin	12 speak	aux
12	speak	speak	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	5 know	ccomp
13	--	--	PUNCT	_	17 heard	punct
14	I	I	PRON	Case=Nom Number=Sing Person=1 PronType=Prs	17 heard	nsubj
15	have	have	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=1 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	17 heard	aux
16	never	never	ADV	PronType=Neg	17 heard	advmod
17	heard	hear	VERB	Tense=Past VerbForm=Part	21 say	advcl
18	either	either	DET	PronType=Ind	21 say	nsubj
19	of	of	ADP	_	20 them	case
20	them	they	PRON	Case=Acc Number=Plur Person=3 PronType=Prs	18 either	nmod
21	say	say	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	5 know	parataxis
22	a	a	DET	Definite=Ind PronType=Art	23 word	det
23	word	word	NOUN	Number=Sing	21 say	obj
24	before	before	ADV	_	21 say	advmod
25	,	,	PUNCT	_	27 have	punct
26	nor	nor	CCONJ	Polarity=Neg	27 have	cc
27	have	have	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	21 say	parataxis
28	I	I	PRON	Case=Nom Number=Sing Person=1 PronType=Prs	30 able	nsubj
29	been	be	AUX	Tense=Past VerbForm=Part	30 able	cop
30	able	able	ADJ	Degree=Pos	27 have	xcomp
31	to	to	PART	_	32 do	mark
32	do	do	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	30 able	xcomp
33	it	it	PRON	Case=Acc Gender=Neut Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	32 do	obj
34	myself	myself	PRON	Case=Acc Number=Sing Person=1 PronType=Emp Reflex=Yes	32 do	obl:unmarked
35	until	until	ADP	_	36 now	case
36	now	now	ADV	PronType=Dem	32 do	obl
37	.	.	PUNCT	_	5 know	punct
38	”	"	PUNCT	_	5 know	punct

Pragmatics

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	other	roles by
1	not know in a quote	present · do-support	house			vn comprehend-87.2-1-1-1 «NP V how S_INF»: agent=Experiencer clause=Stimulus
2	is in a quote	could · past	ring		speak property	tree rules
3	not hear in a quote	present · perfect	house			vn see-30.1-1-1 «NP V PP.stimulus»: agent=Experiencer
4	say speech: assert in a quote	present	either	a word	before property	vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V NP.topic»: agent=Agent word=Topic
5	have in a quote	present				vn birth-28.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent
6	is in a quote	participle	house		able property	tree rules
7	do in a quote	to-infinitive	house not said here	ring	myself obl:unmarked	vn act-114-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent it=Eventuality

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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