The Red Fairy Book, The Wonderful Birch, sentence 34

She tried to be sure to pick up the grains of barley, but she soon saw how useless her labour was; and so she went in her sore trouble to the birch tree on her mother’s grave, and cried and cried, because her mother lay dead beneath the sod and could help her no longer.

Who acts: girl, labour, mother · What happens: try, be, pick up, see, go, cry · To what, where: grains, sore trouble, sod, girl · 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 (girl, labour, mother), 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	She	she	PRON	Case=Nom Gender=Fem Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	2 tried	nsubj
2	tried	try	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	root	root
3	to	to	PART	_	5 sure	mark
4	be	be	AUX	VerbForm=Inf	5 sure	cop
5	sure	sure	ADJ	Degree=Pos	2 tried	xcomp
6	to	to	PART	_	7 pick	mark
7	pick	pick	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	5 sure	xcomp
8	up	up	ADP	_	7 pick	compound:prt
9	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	10 grains	det
10	grains	grain	NOUN	Number=Plur	7 pick	obj
11	of	of	ADP	_	12 barley	case
12	barley	barley	NOUN	Number=Sing	10 grains	nmod
13	,	,	PUNCT	_	17 saw	punct
14	but	but	CCONJ	_	17 saw	cc
15	she	she	PRON	Case=Nom Gender=Fem Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	17 saw	nsubj
16	soon	soon	ADV	Degree=Pos	17 saw	advmod
17	saw	see	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	2 tried	conj
18	how	how	ADV	PronType=Int	19 useless	advmod
19	useless	useless	ADJ	Degree=Pos	17 saw	ccomp
20	her	her	PRON	Case=Gen Gender=Fem Number=Sing Person=3 Poss=Yes PronType=Prs	21 labour	nmod:poss
21	labour	labour	NOUN	Number=Sing	19 useless	nsubj
22	was	be	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	19 useless	cop
23	;	;	PUNCT	_	27 went	punct
24	and	and	CCONJ	_	27 went	cc
25	so	so	ADV	_	27 went	advmod
26	she	she	PRON	Case=Nom Gender=Fem Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	27 went	nsubj
27	went	go	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	2 tried	conj
28	in	in	ADP	_	31 trouble	case
29	her	her	PRON	Case=Gen Gender=Fem Number=Sing Person=3 Poss=Yes PronType=Prs	31 trouble	nmod:poss
30	sore	sore	ADJ	Degree=Pos	31 trouble	amod
31	trouble	trouble	NOUN	Number=Sing	27 went	obl
32	to	to	ADP	_	35 tree	case
33	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	35 tree	det
34	birch	birch	NOUN	Number=Sing	35 tree	compound
35	tree	tree	NOUN	Number=Sing	27 went	obl
36	on	on	ADP	_	40 grave	case
37	her	her	PRON	Case=Gen Gender=Fem Number=Sing Person=3 Poss=Yes PronType=Prs	38 mother	nmod:poss
38	mother	mother	NOUN	Number=Sing	40 grave	nmod:poss
39	’s	's	PART	_	38 mother	case
40	grave	grave	NOUN	Number=Sing	27 went	obl
41	,	,	PUNCT	_	43 cried	punct
42	and	and	CCONJ	_	43 cried	cc
43	cried	cry	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	2 tried	parataxis
44	and	and	CCONJ	_	45 cried	cc
45	cried	cry	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=1 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	43 cried	conj
46	,	,	PUNCT	_	50 lay	punct
47	because	because	SCONJ	_	50 lay	mark
48	her	her	PRON	Case=Gen Gender=Fem Number=Sing Person=3 Poss=Yes PronType=Prs	49 mother	nmod:poss
49	mother	mother	NOUN	Number=Sing	50 lay	nsubj
50	lay	lay	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	45 cried	parataxis
51	dead	dead	ADJ	Degree=Pos	50 lay	xcomp
52	beneath	beneath	ADP	_	54 sod	case
53	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	54 sod	det
54	sod	sod	NOUN	Number=Sing	50 lay	obl
55	and	and	CCONJ	_	57 help	cc
56	could	could	AUX	VerbForm=Fin	57 help	aux
57	help	help	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	50 lay	conj
58	her	she	PRON	Case=Acc Gender=Fem Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	57 help	obj
59	no	no	ADV	_	60 longer	advmod
60	longer	long	ADV	Degree=Cmp	57 help	advmod
61	.	.	PUNCT	_	2 tried	punct

Pragmatics

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	other	roles by
1	try	past	girl					vn amuse-31.1 «NP V ADV-Middle»: agent=Experiencer
2	is not said to happen	to-infinitive	girl not said here				sure property	tree rules
3	pick up	to-infinitive	girl not said here	the grains of barley				vn discover-84-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent grain=Topic
4	see	past	girl				soon property	vn comprehend-87.2-1-1 «NP V»: agent=Experiencer
5	is	past	girl's labour				useless property	tree rules
6	go	past	girl			girl's sore trouble	to the birch tree; on girl's mother's grave	vn escape-51.1-1 «NP V PP.initial_location»: agent=Theme to tree=Initial_Location
7	cry speech: express	past						vn manner_speaking-37.3 «NP V»: agent=Agent
8	cry speech: express	past						vn manner_speaking-37.3 «NP V»: agent=Agent
9	lay	present	girl's mother			the sod	dead property	vn put_spatial-9.2 «NP V NP PP.destination»: agent=Agent beneath sod=Destination
10	help	could	girl's mother not said here		girl		long property	vn help-72.1-1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent she=Beneficiary
11	trouble		girl					nom trouble «cognition 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 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/pg540/14/34/