The Blue Fairy Book, The Forty Thieves, sentence 31

He begged her to explain this riddle, which she did by showing him the piece of money and telling him where she found it.

Who acts: Cassim, wife · What happens: beg, explain, do, show, tell, find · To what, where: wife, riddle, piece, Cassim · Speech: someone speaks here

This is a sentence of «The Blue Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Forty Thieves. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Cassim, wife), 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	He	he	PRON	Case=Nom Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	2 begged	nsubj
2	begged	beg	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	root	root
3	her	she	PRON	Case=Acc Gender=Fem Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	2 begged	obj
4	to	to	PART	_	5 explain	mark
5	explain	explain	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	2 begged	advcl
6	this	this	DET	Number=Sing PronType=Dem	7 riddle	det
7	riddle	riddle	NOUN	Number=Sing	5 explain	obj
8	,	,	PUNCT	_	11 did	punct
9	which	which	PRON	PronType=Rel	11 did	obj
10	she	she	PRON	Case=Nom Gender=Fem Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	11 did	nsubj
11	did	do	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	7 riddle	acl:relcl
12	by	by	SCONJ	_	13 showing	mark
13	showing	show	VERB	Tense=Pres VerbForm=Part	11 did	advcl
14	him	he	PRON	Case=Acc Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	13 showing	iobj
15	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	16 piece	det
16	piece	piece	NOUN	Number=Sing	13 showing	obj
17	of	of	ADP	_	18 money	case
18	money	money	NOUN	Number=Sing	16 piece	nmod
19	and	and	CCONJ	_	20 telling	cc
20	telling	tell	VERB	Tense=Pres VerbForm=Part	13 showing	conj
21	him	he	PRON	Case=Acc Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	20 telling	iobj
22	where	where	ADV	PronType=Rel	24 found	advmod
23	she	she	PRON	Case=Nom Gender=Fem Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	24 found	nsubj
24	found	find	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	20 telling	ccomp
25	it	it	PRON	Case=Acc Gender=Neut Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	24 found	obj
26	.	.	PUNCT	_	2 begged	punct

Pragmatics

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	roles by
1	beg speech: request	past	Cassim		wife	vn beg-58.2-1-1 «NP V NP PP.Topic»: agent=Agent she=Recipient
2	explain speech: assert	to-infinitive	Cassim not said here	this riddle		vn transfer_mesg-37.1.1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent riddle=Topic
3	do	past	wife	this riddle		vn act-114-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent which=Eventuality
4	show	gerund	wife not said here	the piece of money	Cassim	vn transfer_mesg-37.1.1-1-1 «NP V NP-Dative NP»: agent=Agent he=Recipient piece=Topic
5	tell speech: assert	gerund	wife not said here		Cassim	vn transfer_mesg-37.1.1-1-1 «NP V NP what S»: agent=Agent he=Recipient clause=Topic
6	find	past	wife	piece		vn discover-84 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent it=Topic

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/pg503/34/31/