The Blue Fairy Book, The Story of Pretty Goldilocks, sentence 88
“It is useless to try; the Princess must have told me to do it on purpose, knowing it was impossible.”
Who acts: It, Princess · What happens: be, try, tell, do, know · To what, where: Princess, dog, ring, purpose · Speech: someone speaks here
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, Princess), 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 | _ | 4 useless | punct |
| 2 | It | it | PRON | Case=Nom Gender=Neut Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs | 4 useless | nsubj |
| 3 | is | be | AUX | Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin | 4 useless | cop |
| 4 | useless | useless | ADJ | Degree=Pos | root | root |
| 5 | to | to | PART | _ | 6 try | mark |
| 6 | try | try | VERB | VerbForm=Inf | 4 useless | xcomp |
| 7 | ; | ; | PUNCT | _ | 12 told | punct |
| 8 | the | the | DET | Definite=Def PronType=Art | 9 Princess | det |
| 9 | Princess | princess | NOUN | Number=Sing | 12 told | nsubj:pass |
| 10 | must | must | AUX | VerbForm=Fin | 12 told | aux |
| 11 | have | have | AUX | VerbForm=Inf | 12 told | aux |
| 12 | told | tell | VERB | Tense=Past VerbForm=Part Voice=Pass | 4 useless | parataxis |
| 13 | me | I | PRON | Case=Acc Number=Sing Person=1 PronType=Prs | 12 told | iobj |
| 14 | to | to | PART | _ | 15 do | mark |
| 15 | do | do | VERB | VerbForm=Inf | 12 told | xcomp |
| 16 | it | it | PRON | Case=Acc Gender=Neut Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs | 15 do | obj |
| 17 | on | on | ADP | _ | 18 purpose | case |
| 18 | purpose | purpose | NOUN | Number=Sing | 15 do | obl |
| 19 | , | , | PUNCT | _ | 20 knowing | punct |
| 20 | knowing | know | VERB | Tense=Pres VerbForm=Part | 15 do | advcl |
| 21 | it | it | PRON | Case=Nom Gender=Neut Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs | 23 impossible | expl |
| 22 | was | be | AUX | Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | 23 impossible | cop |
| 23 | impossible | impossible | ADJ | Degree=Pos | 20 knowing | ccomp |
| 24 | . | . | PUNCT | _ | 4 useless | punct |
| 25 | ” | " | PUNCT | _ | 4 useless | punct |
Pragmatics
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | is in a quote | present | It | useless property | tree rules | ||||
| 2 | try in a quote | to-infinitive | vn amuse-31.1 «NP V ADV-Middle»: agent=Experiencer | ||||||
| 3 | tell speech: assert in a quote | must · perfect · passive | the Princess | dog | tree rules | ||||
| 4 | do not said to happen, in a quote | to-infinitive | the Princess not said here | ring | purpose | vn act-114-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent it=Eventuality | |||
| 5 | know in a quote | gerund | the Princess not said here | vn comprehend-87.2-1-1-1 «NP V»: agent=Experiencer | |||||
| 6 | is in a quote | past | impossible 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/pg503/28/88/