The Red Fairy Book, The Norka, sentence 133
His brothers forbade us to say that he was alive, threatening to slay us if we did.’
Who acts: brothers, father, we · What happens: forbid, say, be, threaten, slay, do · To what, where: us · Speech: someone speaks here
This is a sentence of «The Red Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Norka. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (brothers, father, we), 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 | His | his | PRON | Case=Gen Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 Poss=Yes PronType=Prs | 2 brothers | nmod:poss |
| 2 | brothers | brother | NOUN | Number=Plur | 3 forbade | nsubj |
| 3 | forbade | forbid | VERB | Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | root | root |
| 4 | us | we | PRON | Case=Acc Number=Plur Person=1 PronType=Prs | 3 forbade | obj |
| 5 | to | to | PART | _ | 6 say | mark |
| 6 | say | say | VERB | VerbForm=Inf | 3 forbade | advcl |
| 7 | that | that | SCONJ | _ | 10 alive | mark |
| 8 | he | he | PRON | Case=Nom Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs | 10 alive | nsubj |
| 9 | was | be | AUX | Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | 10 alive | cop |
| 10 | alive | alive | ADJ | Degree=Pos | 6 say | ccomp |
| 11 | , | , | PUNCT | _ | 12 threatening | punct |
| 12 | threatening | threaten | VERB | Tense=Pres VerbForm=Part | 10 alive | conj |
| 13 | to | to | PART | _ | 14 slay | mark |
| 14 | slay | slay | VERB | VerbForm=Inf | 12 threatening | xcomp |
| 15 | us | we | PRON | Case=Acc Number=Plur Person=1 PronType=Prs | 14 slay | obj |
| 16 | if | if | SCONJ | _ | 18 did | mark |
| 17 | we | we | PRON | Case=Nom Number=Plur Person=1 PronType=Prs | 18 did | nsubj |
| 18 | did | do | VERB | Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=1 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | 14 slay | advcl |
| 19 | . | . | PUNCT | _ | 3 forbade | punct |
| 20 | ’ | ' | PUNCT | _ | 3 forbade | punct |
Pragmatics
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | forbid | past | father's brothers | us | vn forbid-64.4-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Causer we=Theme | ||||
| 2 | say speech: assert | to-infinitive | father's brothers not said here | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent | |||||
| 3 | is | past | father | alive property | tree rules | ||||
| 4 | threaten | gerund | father not said here | tree rules | |||||
| 5 | slay not said to happen | to-infinitive | father not said here | us | vn murder-42.1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent we=Patient | ||||
| 6 | do a condition, not said to happen | past | we | vn act-114-1 «NP V»: agent=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 Red Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Project Gutenberg book 540 (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/pg540/13/133/