The Blue Fairy Book, The Water-lily. the Gold-spinners, sentence 111

He swam up to the plant and began to loosen its roots, but so firmly were they fixed in the mud and reeds that this took him a long time.

Who acts: prince, this · What happens: swim up, begin, loosen, fix, reed, take · To what, where: plant, roots, mud, prince

This is a sentence of «The Blue Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Water-lily. the Gold-spinners. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (prince, this), 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	He	he	PRON	Case=Nom Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	2 swam	nsubj
2	swam	swim	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	root	root
3	up	up	ADP	_	2 swam	compound:prt
4	to	to	ADP	_	6 plant	case
5	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	6 plant	det
6	plant	plant	NOUN	Number=Sing	2 swam	obl
7	and	and	CCONJ	_	8 began	cc
8	began	begin	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	2 swam	conj
9	to	to	PART	_	10 loosen	mark
10	loosen	loosen	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	8 began	xcomp
11	its	its	PRON	Case=Gen Gender=Neut Number=Sing Person=3 Poss=Yes PronType=Prs	12 roots	nmod:poss
12	roots	root	NOUN	Number=Plur	10 loosen	obj
13	,	,	PUNCT	_	19 fixed	punct
14	but	but	CCONJ	_	19 fixed	cc
15	so	so	ADV	_	16 firmly	advmod
16	firmly	firmly	ADV	_	19 fixed	advmod
17	were	be	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	19 fixed	aux:pass
18	they	they	PRON	Case=Nom Number=Plur Person=3 PronType=Prs	19 fixed	nsubj:pass
19	fixed	fix	VERB	Tense=Past VerbForm=Part Voice=Pass	2 swam	parataxis
20	in	in	ADP	_	22 mud	case
21	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	22 mud	det
22	mud	mud	NOUN	Number=Sing	19 fixed	obl
23	and	and	CCONJ	_	24 reeds	cc
24	reeds	reed	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	19 fixed	conj
25	that	that	SCONJ	_	27 took	mark
26	this	this	PRON	Number=Sing PronType=Dem	27 took	nsubj
27	took	take	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	24 reeds	ccomp
28	him	he	PRON	Case=Acc Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	27 took	obj
29	a	a	DET	Definite=Ind PronType=Art	31 time	det
30	long	long	ADJ	Degree=Pos	31 time	amod
31	time	time	NOUN	Number=Sing	27 took	obj
32	.	.	PUNCT	_	2 swam	punct

Pragmatics

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	swim up	past	prince			the plant			vn run-51.3.2-1 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Theme to plant=Destination
2	begin	past	prince not said here						vn begin-55.1-1-1 «NP V S_INF»: agent=Agent clause=Eventuality
3	loosen	to-infinitive	prince not said here	plant's roots					vn other_cos-45.4 «NP V NP.patient»: agent=Agent root=Patient
4	fix	past · passive		roots = root		the mud		firmly property	vn shake-22.3-2 «NP V NP together»: subject=Patient
5	reed	present							tree rules
6	take	past	this		prince		time		vn bring-11.3 «NP V NP ADVP»: agent=Instrument he=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.

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