The Blue Fairy Book, The Brave Little Tailor, sentence 13
But the flies, who didn’t understand English, refused to let themselves be warned off, and returned again in even greater numbers.
Who acts: flies · What happens: not understand, refuse, not let, warn off, return · To what, where: English, flies, greater numbers
This is a sentence of «The Blue Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Brave Little Tailor. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (flies), 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 | But | but | CCONJ | _ | 11 refused | cc |
| 2 | the | the | DET | Definite=Def PronType=Art | 3 flies | det |
| 3 | flies | fly | NOUN | Number=Plur | 11 refused | nsubj |
| 4 | , | , | PUNCT | _ | 8 understand | punct |
| 5 | who | who | PRON | PronType=Rel | 8 understand | nsubj |
| 6 | did | do | AUX | Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=1 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | 8 understand | aux |
| 7 | n’t | not | PART | Polarity=Neg | 8 understand | advmod |
| 8 | understand | understand | VERB | VerbForm=Inf | 3 flies | parataxis |
| 9 | English | English | PROPN | Number=Sing | 8 understand | obj |
| 10 | , | , | PUNCT | _ | 3 flies | punct |
| 11 | refused | refuse | VERB | Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | root | root |
| 12 | to | to | PART | _ | 13 let | mark |
| 13 | let | let | VERB | VerbForm=Inf | 11 refused | xcomp |
| 14 | themselves | themselves | PRON | Case=Acc Number=Plur Person=3 PronType=Prs Reflex=Yes | 13 let | obj |
| 15 | be | be | AUX | VerbForm=Inf | 16 warned | aux:pass |
| 16 | warned | warn | VERB | Tense=Past VerbForm=Part Voice=Pass | 13 let | xcomp |
| 17 | off | off | ADP | _ | 16 warned | compound:prt |
| 18 | , | , | PUNCT | _ | 20 returned | punct |
| 19 | and | and | CCONJ | _ | 20 returned | cc |
| 20 | returned | return | VERB | Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | 11 refused | conj |
| 21 | again | again | ADV | _ | 20 returned | advmod |
| 22 | in | in | ADP | _ | 25 numbers | case |
| 23 | even | even | ADV | _ | 24 greater | advmod |
| 24 | greater | great | ADJ | Degree=Cmp | 25 numbers | amod |
| 25 | numbers | number | NOUN | Number=Plur | 20 returned | obl |
| 26 | . | . | PUNCT | _ | 11 refused | punct |
Pragmatics
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | not understand | past · do-support | the flies | English | vn comprehend-87.2-1-1-1 «NP V NP PP.attribute»: agent=Experiencer english=Stimulus | ||||
| 2 | refuse | past | the flies | vn reject-77.2 «NP V S_ING»: agent=Agent clause=Theme | |||||
| 3 | not let | to-infinitive | the flies not said here | flies = fly | tree rules | ||||
| 4 | warn off speech: warn | infinitive · passive | flies = fly not said here | vn advise-37.9-1 «NP V PP.topic» | |||||
| 5 | return | past | the flies not said here | greater numbers | again | vn escape-51.1-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
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/pg503/42/13/