The Blue Fairy Book, Little Thumb, sentence 121

As it was impossible he could be more weary than he was, he fell asleep, and, after reposing himself some time, began to snore so frightfully that the poor children were no less afraid of him than when he held up his great knife and was going to cut their throats.

Who acts: ogre, poor children · What happens: be, fall, repose, begin, snore, hold up · To what, where: ogre, great knife, throats

This is a sentence of «The Blue Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Little Thumb. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (ogre, poor children), 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	As	as	SCONJ	_	4 impossible	mark
2	it	it	PRON	Case=Nom Gender=Neut Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	4 impossible	expl
3	was	be	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	4 impossible	cop
4	impossible	impossible	ADJ	Degree=Pos	root	root
5	he	he	PRON	Case=Nom Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	9 weary	nsubj
6	could	could	AUX	VerbForm=Fin	9 weary	aux
7	be	be	AUX	VerbForm=Inf	9 weary	cop
8	more	more	ADV	Degree=Cmp	9 weary	advmod
9	weary	weary	ADJ	Degree=Pos	4 impossible	ccomp
10	than	than	SCONJ	_	12 was	mark
11	he	he	PRON	Case=Nom Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	12 was	nsubj
12	was	be	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	9 weary	advcl
13	,	,	PUNCT	_	15 fell	punct
14	he	he	PRON	Case=Nom Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	15 fell	nsubj
15	fell	fall	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	4 impossible	parataxis
16	asleep	asleep	ADJ	Degree=Pos	15 fell	xcomp
17	,	,	PUNCT	_	26 began	punct
18	and	and	CCONJ	_	26 began	cc
19	,	,	PUNCT	_	18 and	punct
20	after	after	SCONJ	_	21 reposing	mark
21	reposing	repose	VERB	Tense=Pres VerbForm=Part	26 began	advcl
22	himself	himself	PRON	Case=Acc Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs Reflex=Yes	21 reposing	obj
23	some	some	DET	PronType=Ind	24 time	det
24	time	time	NOUN	Number=Sing	21 reposing	obl:unmarked
25	,	,	PUNCT	_	21 reposing	punct
26	began	begin	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	15 fell	conj
27	to	to	PART	_	28 snore	mark
28	snore	snore	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	26 began	xcomp
29	so	so	ADV	_	30 frightfully	advmod
30	frightfully	frightfully	ADJ	Degree=Pos	28 snore	xcomp
31	that	that	SCONJ	_	38 afraid	mark
32	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	34 children	det
33	poor	poor	ADJ	Degree=Pos	34 children	amod
34	children	child	NOUN	Number=Plur	38 afraid	nsubj
35	were	be	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	38 afraid	cop
36	no	no	ADV	_	37 less	advmod
37	less	less	ADV	Degree=Cmp	38 afraid	advmod
38	afraid	afraid	ADJ	Degree=Pos	30 frightfully	advcl
39	of	of	ADP	_	40 him	case
40	him	he	PRON	Case=Acc Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	38 afraid	obl
41	than	than	SCONJ	_	44 held	mark
42	when	when	ADV	PronType=Int	44 held	advmod
43	he	he	PRON	Case=Nom Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	44 held	nsubj
44	held	hold	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	38 afraid	advcl
45	up	up	ADP	_	44 held	compound:prt
46	his	his	PRON	Case=Gen Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 Poss=Yes PronType=Prs	48 knife	nmod:poss
47	great	great	ADJ	Degree=Pos	48 knife	amod
48	knife	knife	NOUN	Number=Sing	44 held	obj
49	and	and	CCONJ	_	51 going	cc
50	was	be	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	51 going	aux
51	going	go	VERB	Tense=Pres VerbForm=Part	26 began	conj
52	to	to	PART	_	53 cut	mark
53	cut	cut	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	51 going	xcomp
54	their	their	PRON	Case=Gen Number=Plur Person=3 Poss=Yes PronType=Prs	55 throats	nmod:poss
55	throats	throat	NOUN	Number=Plur	53 cut	obj
56	.	.	PUNCT	_	4 impossible	punct

Pragmatics

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	when	other	roles by
1	is	past				impossible property	tree rules
2	is	could	ogre			weary property	tree rules
3	be	past	ogre				vn exist-47.1 «NP V»: agent=Theme
4	fall	past	ogre			asleep property	vn occur-48.3 «NP V»: agent=Theme
5	repose	gerund		ogre	time		vn spatial_configuration-47.6 «PP.location V NP»: agent=Location himself=Theme
6	begin	past	ogre not said here				vn begin-55.1-1-1 «NP V S_INF»: agent=Agent clause=Eventuality
7	snore	to-infinitive	ogre not said here			frightfully property	vn nonverbal_expression-40.2 «NP V»: agent=Agent
8	is	past	the poor children			of ogre; afraid, less property	tree rules
9	hold up	past	ogre	ogre's great knife			vn support-15.3-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Pivot knife=Theme
10	go	past · progressive	ogre not said here				vn say-37.7 «NP V S-Quote»: agent=Agent clause=Topic
11	cut	to-infinitive	ogre not said here	children's throats			vn build-26.1-1 «NP.asset V NP»: agent=Asset throat=Product

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/pg503/33/121/