The Blue Fairy Book, The White Cat, part 1, sentence 1

Once upon a time there was a king who had three sons, who were all so clever and brave that he began to be afraid that they would want to reign over the kingdom before he was dead.

Who acts: king, three sons, sons · What happens: be, have, begin, want, reign · To what, where: three sons, kingdom

This is a sentence of «The Blue Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The White Cat, 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 (king, three sons, sons), 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	Once	once	ADV	NumForm=Word NumType=Mult	6 was	advmod
2	upon	upon	ADP	_	4 time	case
3	a	a	DET	Definite=Ind PronType=Art	4 time	det
4	time	time	NOUN	Number=Sing	1 Once	obl
5	there	there	PRON	PronType=Dem	6 was	expl
6	was	be	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	root	root
7	a	a	DET	Definite=Ind PronType=Art	8 king	det
8	king	king	NOUN	Number=Sing	6 was	nsubj
9	who	who	PRON	PronType=Rel	10 had	nsubj
10	had	have	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	8 king	acl:relcl
11	three	three	NUM	NumForm=Word NumType=Card	12 sons	nummod
12	sons	son	NOUN	Number=Plur	10 had	obj
13	,	,	PUNCT	_	18 clever	punct
14	who	who	PRON	PronType=Rel	18 clever	nsubj
15	were	be	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	18 clever	cop
16	all	all	ADV	_	18 clever	advmod
17	so	so	ADV	_	18 clever	advmod
18	clever	clever	ADJ	Degree=Pos	12 sons	conj
19	and	and	CCONJ	_	20 brave	cc
20	brave	brave	ADJ	Degree=Pos	18 clever	conj
21	that	that	SCONJ	_	23 began	mark
22	he	he	PRON	Case=Nom Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	23 began	nsubj
23	began	begin	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	20 brave	advcl
24	to	to	PART	_	26 afraid	mark
25	be	be	AUX	VerbForm=Inf	26 afraid	cop
26	afraid	afraid	ADJ	Degree=Pos	23 began	xcomp
27	that	that	SCONJ	_	30 want	mark
28	they	they	PRON	Case=Nom Number=Plur Person=3 PronType=Prs	30 want	nsubj
29	would	would	AUX	VerbForm=Fin	30 want	aux
30	want	want	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	26 afraid	ccomp
31	to	to	PART	_	32 reign	mark
32	reign	reign	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	30 want	xcomp
33	over	over	ADP	_	35 kingdom	case
34	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	35 kingdom	det
35	kingdom	kingdom	NOUN	Number=Sing	32 reign	obl
36	before	before	SCONJ	_	39 dead	mark
37	he	he	PRON	Case=Nom Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	39 dead	nsubj
38	was	be	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	39 dead	cop
39	dead	dead	ADJ	Degree=Pos	32 reign	advcl
40	.	.	PUNCT	_	6 was	punct

Pragmatics

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	where	other	roles by
1	be	past	a king		there	once property	vn exist-47.1 «NP V»: agent=Theme
2	have	past	a king	three sons			vn birth-28.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent son=Patient
3	is	past	three sons			all, clever property	tree rules
4	be		three sons not said here				tree rules
5	begin	past	king				vn begin-55.1-1-1 «NP.eventuality V»: agent=Eventuality
6	is	to-infinitive	king not said here			afraid property	tree rules
7	want	would	sons = son				vn want-32.1-1-1 «NP V NP S_INF»: agent=Pivot clause=Theme
8	reign not said to happen	to-infinitive	sons = son not said here		the kingdom		tree rules
9	is	past	king			dead property	tree rules

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/pg503/23/1/