The Blue Fairy Book, Little Thumb, sentence 66

To be sure the wolves of the forest will devour us to-night if you refuse us to lie here; and so we would rather the gentleman should eat us; and perhaps he may take pity upon us, especially if you please to beg it of him.”

Who acts: wolves, you, we, gentleman · What happens: be, devour, refuse, not lie, gentleman, eat · To what, where: us, pity

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 (wolves, you, we, gentleman), 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	To	to	PART	_	3 sure	mark
2	be	be	AUX	VerbForm=Inf	3 sure	cop
3	sure	sure	ADJ	Degree=Pos	root	root
4	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	5 wolves	det
5	wolves	wolf	NOUN	Number=Plur	10 devour	nsubj
6	of	of	ADP	_	8 forest	case
7	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	8 forest	det
8	forest	forest	NOUN	Number=Sing	5 wolves	nmod
9	will	will	AUX	VerbForm=Fin	10 devour	aux
10	devour	devour	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	3 sure	ccomp
11	us	we	PRON	Case=Acc Number=Plur Person=1 PronType=Prs	10 devour	obj
12	to	to	ADP	_	14 night	case
13	-	-	PUNCT	_	12 to	punct
14	night	night	NOUN	Number=Sing	10 devour	obl
15	if	if	SCONJ	_	17 refuse	mark
16	you	you	PRON	Case=Nom Person=2 PronType=Prs	17 refuse	nsubj
17	refuse	refuse	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=2 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	10 devour	advcl
18	us	we	PRON	Case=Acc Number=Plur Person=1 PronType=Prs	17 refuse	obj
19	to	to	PART	_	20 lie	mark
20	lie	lie	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	17 refuse	xcomp
21	here	here	ADV	PronType=Dem	20 lie	advmod
22	;	;	PUNCT	_	31 eat	punct
23	and	and	CCONJ	_	31 eat	cc
24	so	so	ADV	_	29 gentleman	advmod
25	we	we	PRON	Case=Nom Number=Plur Person=1 PronType=Prs	29 gentleman	nsubj
26	would	would	AUX	VerbForm=Fin	29 gentleman	aux
27	rather	rather	ADV	_	29 gentleman	advmod
28	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	29 gentleman	det
29	gentleman	gentleman	NOUN	Number=Sing	31 eat	nsubj
30	should	should	AUX	VerbForm=Fin	31 eat	aux
31	eat	eat	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	3 sure	parataxis
32	us	we	PRON	Case=Acc Number=Plur Person=1 PronType=Prs	31 eat	obj
33	;	;	PUNCT	_	38 take	punct
34	and	and	CCONJ	_	38 take	cc
35	perhaps	perhaps	ADV	_	38 take	advmod
36	he	he	PRON	Case=Nom Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	38 take	nsubj
37	may	may	AUX	VerbForm=Fin	38 take	aux
38	take	take	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	31 eat	conj
39	pity	pity	NOUN	Number=Sing	38 take	obj
40	upon	upon	ADP	_	41 us	case
41	us	we	PRON	Case=Acc Number=Plur Person=1 PronType=Prs	38 take	obl
42	,	,	PUNCT	_	46 please	punct
43	especially	especially	ADV	_	46 please	advmod
44	if	if	SCONJ	_	46 please	mark
45	you	you	PRON	Case=Nom Person=2 PronType=Prs	46 please	nsubj
46	please	please	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=2 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	31 eat	conj
47	to	to	PART	_	48 beg	mark
48	beg	beg	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	46 please	xcomp
49	it	it	PRON	Case=Acc Gender=Neut Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	48 beg	obj
50	of	of	ADP	_	51 him	case
51	him	he	PRON	Case=Acc Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	48 beg	obl
52	.	.	PUNCT	_	3 sure	punct
53	”	"	PUNCT	_	3 sure	punct

Pragmatics

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	is	to-infinitive						sure property	tree rules
2	devour	future	the wolves of the forest	us			night		vn devour-39.4 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent we=Patient
3	refuse a condition, not said to happen	present	you	us					tree rules
4	not lie	to-infinitive	you not said here			here			vn assuming_position-50 «NP V»: agent=Agent
5	gentleman	would	we						tree rules
6	eat	should	the gentleman	us					vn eat-39.1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent we=Patient
7	take	may	gentleman	pity				upon us; perhaps property	vn bring-11.3 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent pity=Theme
8	please a condition, not said to happen	present	you					especially property	tree rules
9	beg speech: request	to-infinitive	you not said here		pity			of gentleman	vn beg-58.2-1-1 «NP V NP PP.Topic»: agent=Agent it=Recipient

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/pg503/33/66/