The Blue Fairy Book, The Story of Pretty Goldilocks, sentence 187

Now it happened that one of the Princess’s ladies in chasing a spider had knocked the flask off the shelf and broken it, and every drop of the water had been spilt.

Who acts: it, ladies, drop · What happens: happen, chase, knock, break, be · To what, where: spider, one, flask, spilt

This is a sentence of «The Blue Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Story of Pretty Goldilocks. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (it, ladies, drop), 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	Now	now	ADV	PronType=Dem	3 happened	advmod
2	it	it	PRON	Case=Nom Gender=Neut Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	3 happened	nsubj
3	happened	happen	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	root	root
4	that	that	SCONJ	_	16 knocked	mark
5	one	one	NUM	NumForm=Word NumType=Card	16 knocked	nsubj:pass
6	of	of	ADP	_	10 ladies	case
7	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	8 Princess	det
8	Princess	Princess	PROPN	Number=Sing	10 ladies	nmod:poss
9	’s	's	PART	_	8 Princess	case
10	ladies	lady	NOUN	Number=Plur	5 one	nmod
11	in	in	SCONJ	_	12 chasing	mark
12	chasing	chase	VERB	VerbForm=Ger	10 ladies	acl
13	a	a	DET	Definite=Ind PronType=Art	14 spider	det
14	spider	spider	NOUN	Number=Sing	12 chasing	obj
15	had	have	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	16 knocked	aux
16	knocked	knock	VERB	Tense=Past VerbForm=Part Voice=Pass	3 happened	advcl
17	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	18 flask	det
18	flask	flask	NOUN	Number=Sing	16 knocked	obj
19	off	off	ADP	_	21 shelf	case
20	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	21 shelf	det
21	shelf	shelf	NOUN	Number=Sing	16 knocked	obl
22	and	and	CCONJ	_	23 broken	cc
23	broken	break	VERB	Tense=Past VerbForm=Part Voice=Pass	16 knocked	conj
24	it	it	PRON	Case=Acc Gender=Neut Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	23 broken	obj
25	,	,	PUNCT	_	34 spilt	punct
26	and	and	CCONJ	_	34 spilt	cc
27	every	every	DET	PronType=Tot	28 drop	det
28	drop	drop	NOUN	Number=Sing	34 spilt	nsubj
29	of	of	ADP	_	31 water	case
30	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	31 water	det
31	water	water	NOUN	Number=Sing	28 drop	nmod
32	had	have	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	34 spilt	aux
33	been	be	AUX	Tense=Past VerbForm=Part	34 spilt	cop
34	spilt	spilt	NOUN	Number=Sing	3 happened	conj
35	.	.	PUNCT	_	3 happened	punct

Pragmatics

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	when	other	roles by
1	happen	past	it		now		vn occur-48.3-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme
2	chase	gerund	the Princess's ladies not said here	a spider			vn chase-51.6 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent spider=Theme
3	knock	past · perfect · passive		one of the Princess's ladies		off the shelf	vn throw-17.1-1 «NP V NP-Dative NP»: subject=Destination flask=Theme
4	break	participle		flask			vn hurt-40.8.3-1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Experiencer it=Patient
5	is a	past · perfect	every drop of the water	spilt			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/pg503/28/187/