The Red Fairy Book, The Twelve Dancing Princesses, sentence 26

When they were asked what they had been doing all night, they always answered that they had been asleep; and, indeed, no noise was ever heard in the room, yet the shoes could not wear themselves out alone!

Who acts: princesses, shoes · What happens: ask, do, answer, be, hear, not wear out · To what, where: princesses, noise, room · Speech: someone speaks here

This is a sentence of «The Red Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Twelve Dancing Princesses. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (princesses, shoes), 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	When	when	ADV	PronType=Int	4 asked	advmod
2	they	they	PRON	Case=Nom Number=Plur Person=3 PronType=Prs	4 asked	nsubj
3	were	be	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	4 asked	aux:pass
4	asked	ask	VERB	Tense=Past VerbForm=Part Voice=Pass	root	root
5	what	what	PRON	PronType=Int	9 doing	obj
6	they	they	PRON	Case=Nom Number=Plur Person=3 PronType=Prs	9 doing	nsubj
7	had	have	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	9 doing	aux
8	been	be	AUX	Tense=Past VerbForm=Part	9 doing	aux
9	doing	do	VERB	Tense=Pres VerbForm=Part	4 asked	ccomp
10	all	all	DET	PronType=Tot	11 night	det
11	night	night	NOUN	Number=Sing	9 doing	obl:unmarked
12	,	,	PUNCT	_	15 answered	punct
13	they	they	PRON	Case=Nom Number=Plur Person=3 PronType=Prs	15 answered	nsubj
14	always	always	ADV	PronType=Tot	15 answered	advmod
15	answered	answer	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	4 asked	parataxis
16	that	that	SCONJ	_	20 asleep	mark
17	they	they	PRON	Case=Nom Number=Plur Person=3 PronType=Prs	20 asleep	nsubj
18	had	have	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	20 asleep	aux
19	been	be	AUX	Tense=Past VerbForm=Part	20 asleep	cop
20	asleep	asleep	ADJ	Degree=Pos	15 answered	advcl
21	;	;	PUNCT	_	30 heard	punct
22	and	and	CCONJ	_	30 heard	cc
23	,	,	PUNCT	_	22 and	punct
24	indeed	indeed	ADV	_	30 heard	advmod
25	,	,	PUNCT	_	30 heard	punct
26	no	no	DET	PronType=Neg	27 noise	det
27	noise	noise	NOUN	Number=Sing	30 heard	nsubj
28	was	be	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	30 heard	aux:pass
29	ever	ever	ADV	PronType=Ind	30 heard	advmod
30	heard	hear	VERB	Tense=Past VerbForm=Part Voice=Pass	4 asked	parataxis
31	in	in	ADP	_	33 room	case
32	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	33 room	det
33	room	room	NOUN	Number=Sing	30 heard	obl
34	,	,	PUNCT	_	40 wear	punct
35	yet	yet	CCONJ	_	40 wear	cc
36	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	37 shoes	det
37	shoes	shoe	NOUN	Number=Plur	40 wear	nsubj
38	could	could	AUX	VerbForm=Fin	40 wear	aux
39	not	not	PART	Polarity=Neg	40 wear	advmod
40	wear	wear	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	30 heard	conj
41	themselves	themselves	PRON	Case=Acc Number=Plur Person=3 PronType=Prs Reflex=Yes	40 wear	obj
42	out	out	ADP	_	40 wear	compound:prt
43	alone	alone	ADV	_	40 wear	advmod
44	!	!	PUNCT	_	4 asked	punct

Pragmatics

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	ask speech: ask	past · passive		princesses = princess				vn inquire-37.1.2 «NP V NP whether S»: subject=Recipient clause=Topic
2	do	past · perfect · progressive	princesses = princess			night		vn act-114-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent what=Eventuality
3	answer speech: assert	past	princesses = princess				always property	vn reciprocate-112-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent
4	is	past · perfect	princesses = princess				asleep property	tree rules
5	hear	past · passive		no noise	the room	ever	indeed property	vn see-30.1-1-1 «NP V S»: subject=Stimulus
6	not wear out	could	the shoes	princesses = princess			alone property	vn wipe_manner-10.4.1-1 «NP V NP.source»: agent=Agent themselves=Source

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/pg540/2/26/