The Blue Fairy Book, The Brave Little Tailor, sentence 20

Before he set forth he looked round about him, to see if there was anything in the house he could take with him on his journey; but he found nothing except an old cheese, which he took possession of.

Who acts: field, anything, old cheese · What happens: set, look round, see, be, take, find · To what, where: journey, nothing, possession

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 (field, anything, old cheese), 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	Before	before	SCONJ	_	3 set	mark
2	he	he	PRON	Case=Nom Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	3 set	nsubj
3	set	set	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	root	root
4	forth	forth	ADV	_	3 set	advmod
5	he	he	PRON	Case=Nom Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	6 looked	nsubj
6	looked	look	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	3 set	parataxis
7	round	round	ADV	_	6 looked	advmod
8	about	about	ADP	_	9 him	case
9	him	he	PRON	Case=Acc Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	6 looked	obl
10	,	,	PUNCT	_	12 see	punct
11	to	to	PART	_	12 see	mark
12	see	see	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	6 looked	conj
13	if	if	SCONJ	_	15 was	mark
14	there	there	PRON	PronType=Dem	15 was	expl
15	was	be	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	12 see	ccomp
16	anything	anything	PRON	Number=Sing PronType=Ind	15 was	nsubj
17	in	in	ADP	_	19 house	case
18	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	19 house	det
19	house	house	NOUN	Number=Sing	16 anything	nmod
20	he	he	PRON	Case=Nom Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	22 take	nsubj
21	could	could	AUX	VerbForm=Fin	22 take	aux
22	take	take	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	16 anything	acl:relcl
23	with	with	ADP	_	24 him	case
24	him	he	PRON	Case=Acc Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	22 take	obl
25	on	on	ADP	_	27 journey	case
26	his	his	PRON	Case=Gen Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 Poss=Yes PronType=Prs	27 journey	nmod:poss
27	journey	journey	NOUN	Number=Sing	22 take	obl
28	;	;	PUNCT	_	31 found	punct
29	but	but	CCONJ	_	31 found	cc
30	he	he	PRON	Case=Nom Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	31 found	nsubj
31	found	find	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	3 set	conj
32	nothing	nothing	PRON	Number=Sing PronType=Neg	31 found	obj
33	except	except	ADP	_	36 cheese	case
34	an	a	DET	Definite=Ind PronType=Art	36 cheese	det
35	old	old	ADJ	Degree=Pos	36 cheese	amod
36	cheese	cheese	NOUN	Number=Sing	32 nothing	nmod
37	,	,	PUNCT	_	40 took	punct
38	which	which	PRON	PronType=Rel	40 took	nsubj
39	he	he	PRON	Case=Nom Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	40 took	nsubj
40	took	take	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	36 cheese	acl:relcl
41	possession	possession	NOUN	Number=Sing	40 took	obj
42	of	of	ADP	_	41 possession	fixed
43	.	.	PUNCT	_	3 set	punct

Pragmatics

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	where	other	roles by
1	set	past	field			forth property	vn other_cos-45.4-1 «NP.patient V»: agent=Patient
2	look round	past	field			about tailor; round property	vn peer-30.3 «NP V PP.theme»: agent=Agent about he=Theme
3	see	to-infinitive	field not said here				vn comprehend-87.2-1-1 «NP V how S_INF»: agent=Experiencer clause=Stimulus
4	be a condition, not said to happen	past	anything		there		vn exist-47.1 «NP V»: agent=Theme
5	take	could	field		field's journey	with tailor	vn bring-11.3 «NP V NP PP.destination»: agent=Agent on journey=Destination
6	find	past	field	nothing		except a old cheese	vn discover-84 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent nothing=Topic
7	take	past	a old cheese	possession			vn bring-11.3 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent possession=Theme
8	journey		field				nom journey «act transitive»: poss=agent

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.

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