The Red Fairy Book, The Wonderful Birch, sentence 21

Some time had passed away—who can tell how long they might have been living there?—when the witch, to whom a child had been born in the meantime, began to take an ill-will to the man’s daughter, and to torment her in all sorts of ways.

Who acts: time, bones, witch · What happens: pass away, tell, live, bear, begin, take · To what, where: child, meantime, witch, sorts, ways · Speech: someone speaks here

This is a sentence of «The Red Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Wonderful Birch. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (time, bones, witch), 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	Some	some	DET	PronType=Ind	2 time	det
2	time	time	NOUN	Number=Sing	4 passed	nsubj
3	had	have	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	4 passed	aux
4	passed	pass	VERB	Tense=Past VerbForm=Part	root	root
5	away	away	ADV	_	4 passed	advmod
6	—	-	PUNCT	_	9 tell	punct
7	who	who	PRON	PronType=Rel	9 tell	nsubj
8	can	can	AUX	VerbForm=Fin	9 tell	aux
9	tell	tell	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	4 passed	parataxis
10	how	how	ADV	PronType=Int	11 long	advmod
11	long	long	ADV	Degree=Pos	16 living	advmod
12	they	they	PRON	Case=Nom Number=Plur Person=3 PronType=Prs	16 living	nsubj
13	might	might	AUX	VerbForm=Fin	16 living	aux
14	have	have	AUX	VerbForm=Inf	16 living	aux
15	been	be	AUX	Tense=Past VerbForm=Part	16 living	aux
16	living	live	VERB	Tense=Pres VerbForm=Part	9 tell	ccomp
17	there	there	ADV	PronType=Dem	16 living	advmod
18	?	?	PUNCT	_	4 passed	punct
19	—	-	PUNCT	_	22 witch	punct
20	when	when	ADV	PronType=Int	22 witch	advmod
21	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	22 witch	det
22	witch	witch	NOUN	Number=Sing	35 began	nsubj
23	,	,	PUNCT	_	30 born	punct
24	to	to	ADP	_	25 whom	case
25	whom	whom	PRON	PronType=Rel	30 born	obl
26	a	a	DET	Definite=Ind PronType=Art	27 child	det
27	child	child	NOUN	Number=Sing	30 born	nsubj:pass
28	had	have	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	30 born	aux
29	been	be	AUX	Tense=Past VerbForm=Part	30 born	aux:pass
30	born	bear	VERB	Tense=Past VerbForm=Part Voice=Pass	22 witch	conj
31	in	in	ADP	_	33 meantime	case
32	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	33 meantime	det
33	meantime	meantime	NOUN	Number=Sing	30 born	obl
34	,	,	PUNCT	_	35 began	punct
35	began	begin	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	4 passed	parataxis
36	to	to	PART	_	37 take	mark
37	take	take	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	35 began	xcomp
38	an	a	DET	Definite=Ind PronType=Art	41 will	det
39	ill	ill	ADJ	Degree=Pos	41 will	advcl
40	-	-	PUNCT	_	39 ill	punct
41	will	will	AUX	VerbForm=Fin	37 take	advcl
42	to	to	ADP	_	46 daughter	case
43	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	44 man	det
44	man	man	NOUN	Number=Sing	46 daughter	nmod:poss
45	’s	's	PART	_	44 man	case
46	daughter	daughter	NOUN	Number=Sing	41 will	obl
47	,	,	PUNCT	_	50 torment	punct
48	and	and	CCONJ	_	50 torment	cc
49	to	to	PART	_	50 torment	mark
50	torment	torment	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	4 passed	conj
51	her	she	PRON	Case=Acc Gender=Fem Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	50 torment	obj
52	in	in	ADP	_	54 sorts	case
53	all	all	DET	PronType=Tot	54 sorts	det
54	sorts	sort	NOUN	Number=Plur	50 torment	obl
55	of	of	ADP	_	56 ways	case
56	ways	way	NOUN	Number=Plur	54 sorts	nmod
57	.	.	PUNCT	_	4 passed	punct

Pragmatics

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	where	other	roles by
1	pass away	past · perfect	some time			away property	vn die-42.4-1 «NP V»: agent=Patient
2	tell speech: assert	can					vn transfer_mesg-37.1.1-1-1 «NP V how S»: agent=Agent clause=Topic
3	live	might · perfect · progressive	bones = bone		there	long property	vn exist-47.1-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme
4	bear	past · perfect · passive		a child	the meantime	to the witch	vn birth-28.2-1-1 «NP V NP»: subject=Patient
5	begin	past	the witch				vn begin-55.1-1-1 «NP V S_INF»: agent=Agent clause=Eventuality
6	take	to-infinitive	the witch not said here				vn bring-11.3 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent
7	torment	to-infinitive	some time not said here	witch	all sorts of ways		vn amuse-31.1 «NP V NP»: agent=Stimulus she=Experiencer
8	sort			ways			nom sort «cognition transitive»: of=patient

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/pg540/14/21/