The Blue Fairy Book, The History of Jack the Giant-killer, sentence 58

“Nay,” said Jack, “if this be the case I’d better dispatch you!” so, jumping upon the block, he stabbed him in the back, when he dropped down dead.

Who acts: Jack, this · What happens: say, be, dispatch, jump, stab, drop down · To what, where: case, you, block, club, back · Speech: someone speaks here

This is a sentence of «The Blue Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The History of Jack the Giant-killer. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Jack, this), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

Checked tree. This sentence is in the tales treebank of Mova corpus 0.3 (gutenberg:pg503:3905): parsed by Mova, then checked and patched by a teacher model under UD validation gates — Mova annot: Rust (en) → Claude Opus (medium) patches; gates UD 2.18.

The tree

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	“	"	PUNCT	_	2 Nay	punct
2	Nay	nay	INTJ	_	5 said	ccomp
3	,	,	PUNCT	_	2 Nay	punct
4	”	"	PUNCT	_	2 Nay	punct
5	said	say	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	root	root
6	Jack	Jack	PROPN	Number=Sing	5 said	nsubj
7	,	,	PUNCT	_	17 dispatch	punct
8	“	"	PUNCT	_	17 dispatch	punct
9	if	if	SCONJ	_	13 case	mark
10	this	this	PRON	Number=Sing PronType=Dem	13 case	nsubj
11	be	be	AUX	VerbForm=Inf	13 case	cop
12	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	13 case	det
13	case	case	NOUN	Number=Sing	17 dispatch	advcl
14	I	I	PRON	Case=Nom Number=Sing Person=1 PronType=Prs	17 dispatch	nsubj
15	’d	have	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=1 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	17 dispatch	aux
16	better	well	ADV	Degree=Cmp	17 dispatch	advmod
17	dispatch	dispatch	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	5 said	ccomp
18	you	you	PRON	Case=Acc Person=2 PronType=Prs	17 dispatch	obj
19	!	!	PUNCT	_	17 dispatch	punct
20	”	"	PUNCT	_	17 dispatch	punct
21	so	so	ADV	_	29 stabbed	advmod
22	,	,	PUNCT	_	23 jumping	punct
23	jumping	jump	VERB	Tense=Pres VerbForm=Part	29 stabbed	advcl
24	upon	upon	ADP	_	26 block	case
25	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	26 block	det
26	block	block	NOUN	Number=Sing	23 jumping	obl
27	,	,	PUNCT	_	29 stabbed	punct
28	he	he	PRON	Case=Nom Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	29 stabbed	nsubj
29	stabbed	stab	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	5 said	parataxis
30	him	he	PRON	Case=Acc Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	29 stabbed	obj
31	in	in	ADP	_	33 back	case
32	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	33 back	det
33	back	back	NOUN	Number=Sing	29 stabbed	obl
34	,	,	PUNCT	_	37 dropped	punct
35	when	when	ADV	PronType=Int	37 dropped	advmod
36	he	he	PRON	Case=Nom Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	37 dropped	nsubj
37	dropped	drop	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	29 stabbed	advcl
38	down	down	ADP	_	37 dropped	compound:prt
39	dead	dead	ADJ	Degree=Pos	37 dropped	xcomp
40	.	.	PUNCT	_	5 said	punct

Pragmatics

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	where	other	roles by
1	say speech: express	past	Jack				vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent clause=Topic
2	is a a condition, not said to happen, in a quote	infinitive	this	the case			tree rules
3	dispatch in a quote	past	Jack	you		well property	vn murder-42.1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent you=Patient
4	jump	gerund	Jack not said here		the block		vn run-51.3.2-2-1 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Theme upon block=Trajectory
5	stab	past	Jack	club	the back		vn swat-18.2 «NP V NP PP.location»: agent=Agent he=Patient in back=Location
6	drop down	past	Jack			dead property	vn roll-51.3.1 «NP.theme 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: the tales treebank of Mova corpus 0.3, Apache-2.0 OR MIT. Frames: Mova's frames reader (prag), the chapter read in order.

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