The Blue Fairy Book, The Terrible Head, sentence 50

Their hair was as white as the snow, and their flesh of an icy blue, and they mumbled and nodded in a kind of dream, and their frozen breath hung round them like a cloud.

Who acts: hair, flesh, things, frozen breath · What happens: be, mumble, nod, freeze, hang

This is a sentence of «The Blue Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Terrible Head. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (hair, flesh, things, frozen breath), 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	Their	their	PRON	Case=Gen Number=Plur Person=3 Poss=Yes PronType=Prs	2 hair	nmod:poss
2	hair	hair	NOUN	Number=Sing	5 white	nsubj
3	was	be	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	5 white	cop
4	as	as	ADV	_	5 white	advmod
5	white	white	ADJ	Degree=Pos	root	root
6	as	as	ADP	_	8 snow	case
7	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	8 snow	det
8	snow	snow	NOUN	Number=Sing	5 white	obl
9	,	,	PUNCT	_	16 blue	punct
10	and	and	CCONJ	_	16 blue	cc
11	their	their	PRON	Case=Gen Number=Plur Person=3 Poss=Yes PronType=Prs	12 flesh	nmod:poss
12	flesh	flesh	NOUN	Number=Sing	16 blue	nsubj
13	of	of	SCONJ	_	16 blue	mark
14	an	a	DET	Definite=Ind PronType=Art	16 blue	det
15	icy	icy	ADJ	Degree=Pos	16 blue	amod
16	blue	blue	ADJ	Degree=Pos	5 white	conj
17	,	,	PUNCT	_	20 mumbled	punct
18	and	and	CCONJ	_	20 mumbled	cc
19	they	they	PRON	Case=Nom Number=Plur Person=3 PronType=Prs	20 mumbled	nsubj
20	mumbled	mumble	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	5 white	parataxis
21	and	and	CCONJ	_	22 nodded	cc
22	nodded	nod	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	20 mumbled	conj
23	in	in	ADP	_	25 kind	case
24	a	a	DET	Definite=Ind PronType=Art	25 kind	det
25	kind	kind	NOUN	Number=Sing	22 nodded	obl
26	of	of	ADP	_	27 dream	case
27	dream	dream	NOUN	Number=Sing	25 kind	nmod
28	,	,	PUNCT	_	33 hung	punct
29	and	and	CCONJ	_	33 hung	cc
30	their	their	PRON	Case=Gen Number=Plur Person=3 Poss=Yes PronType=Prs	32 breath	nmod:poss
31	frozen	freeze	VERB	Tense=Past VerbForm=Part Voice=Pass	32 breath	amod
32	breath	breath	NOUN	Number=Sing	33 hung	nsubj
33	hung	hang	VERB	Tense=Past VerbForm=Part Voice=Pass	20 mumbled	conj
34	round	round	ADP	_	35 them	case
35	them	they	PRON	Case=Acc Number=Plur Person=3 PronType=Prs	33 hung	obl
36	like	like	ADP	_	38 cloud	case
37	a	a	DET	Definite=Ind PronType=Art	38 cloud	det
38	cloud	cloud	NOUN	Number=Sing	33 hung	obl
39	.	.	PUNCT	_	5 white	punct

Pragmatics

#	verb	tense, mood	who	other	roles by
1	is	past	things's hair	as the snow; white property	tree rules
2	be		things's flesh		tree rules
3	mumble speech: other	past	things = thing		vn manner_speaking-37.3 «NP V»: agent=Agent
4	nod	past	things = thing not said here	in a kind of dream	vn wink-40.3.1 «NP V PP.theme»: agent=Agent in kind=Theme
5	freeze	participle			vn other_cos-45.4-1 «NP.patient V»: agent=Patient
6	hang	participle	things's frozen breath	round things = thing; like a cloud	vn spray-9.7-1 «NP V PP.destination»: agent=Theme round they=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.

This page in Markdown → https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg503/27/50/