The Red Fairy Book, The Norka, sentence 36

Neither of them could so much as stir it, but as soon as he touched it, away it flew to a distance, though it was ever so big—big as a hill.

Who acts: Neither, rope, stone · What happens: stir, touch, fly, be · To what, where: stone

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 (Neither, rope, stone), 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	Neither	neither	DET	PronType=Neg	8 stir	nsubj
2	of	of	ADP	_	3 them	case
3	them	they	PRON	Case=Acc Number=Plur Person=3 PronType=Prs	1 Neither	nmod
4	could	could	AUX	VerbForm=Fin	8 stir	aux
5	so	so	ADV	_	6 much	advmod
6	much	much	ADV	_	8 stir	advmod
7	as	as	SCONJ	_	8 stir	mark
8	stir	stir	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	root	root
9	it	it	PRON	Case=Acc Gender=Neut Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	8 stir	obj
10	,	,	PUNCT	_	21 flew	punct
11	but	but	CCONJ	_	21 flew	cc
12	as	as	ADV	_	13 soon	advmod
13	soon	soon	ADV	Degree=Pos	21 flew	advmod
14	as	as	SCONJ	_	16 touched	mark
15	he	he	PRON	Case=Nom Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	16 touched	nsubj
16	touched	touch	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	13 soon	advcl
17	it	it	PRON	Case=Acc Gender=Neut Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	16 touched	obj
18	,	,	PUNCT	_	19 away	punct
19	away	away	ADV	_	13 soon	conj
20	it	it	PRON	Case=Nom Gender=Neut Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	21 flew	nsubj
21	flew	fly	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	8 stir	conj
22	to	to	ADP	_	24 distance	case
23	a	a	DET	Definite=Ind PronType=Art	24 distance	det
24	distance	distance	NOUN	Number=Sing	21 flew	obl
25	,	,	PUNCT	_	31 big	punct
26	though	though	SCONJ	_	31 big	mark
27	it	it	PRON	Case=Nom Gender=Neut Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	31 big	nsubj
28	was	be	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	31 big	cop
29	ever	ever	ADV	PronType=Ind	31 big	advmod
30	so	so	ADV	_	31 big	advmod
31	big	big	ADJ	Degree=Pos	21 flew	parataxis
32	—	-	PUNCT	_	33 big	punct
33	big	big	ADJ	Degree=Pos	31 big	conj
34	as	as	ADP	_	36 hill	case
35	a	a	DET	Definite=Ind PronType=Art	36 hill	det
36	hill	hill	NOUN	Number=Sing	33 big	obl
37	.	.	PUNCT	_	8 stir	punct

Pragmatics

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	when	other	roles by
1	stir	could	Neither	stone			vn amuse-31.1 «NP V NP»: agent=Stimulus it=Experiencer
2	touch	past	rope	stone			vn contiguous_location-47.8-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Theme it=Co-Theme
3	fly	past	stone			to a distance result; soon property	vn run-51.3.2-2-1 «NP V PP.result»: agent=Theme to distance=Result
4	is	past	stone		ever	big property	tree rules
5	be		stone not said here			as a hill	tree rules

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/pg540/13/36/