The Red Fairy Book, The Nettle Spinner, sentence 143
If Death was so slow in coming, it was because he was not ready to follow him, having no shroud for his burial.
Who acts: Death, it · What happens: be, come, not be, follow, have, bury · To what, where: death, shroud
This is a sentence of «The Red Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Nettle Spinner. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Death, it), 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 | If | if | SCONJ | _ | 5 slow | mark |
| 2 | Death | Death | PROPN | Number=Sing | 5 slow | nsubj |
| 3 | was | be | AUX | Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | 5 slow | cop |
| 4 | so | so | ADV | _ | 5 slow | advmod |
| 5 | slow | slow | ADJ | Degree=Pos | 15 ready | advcl |
| 6 | in | in | SCONJ | _ | 7 coming | mark |
| 7 | coming | come | VERB | Tense=Pres VerbForm=Part | 5 slow | advcl |
| 8 | , | , | PUNCT | _ | 5 slow | punct |
| 9 | it | it | PRON | Case=Nom Gender=Neut Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs | 15 ready | nsubj |
| 10 | was | be | AUX | Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | 15 ready | cop |
| 11 | because | because | SCONJ | _ | 15 ready | mark |
| 12 | he | he | PRON | Case=Nom Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs | 15 ready | nsubj |
| 13 | was | be | AUX | Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | 15 ready | cop |
| 14 | not | not | PART | Polarity=Neg | 15 ready | advmod |
| 15 | ready | ready | ADJ | Degree=Pos | root | root |
| 16 | to | to | PART | _ | 17 follow | mark |
| 17 | follow | follow | VERB | VerbForm=Inf | 15 ready | xcomp |
| 18 | him | he | PRON | Case=Acc Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs | 17 follow | obj |
| 19 | , | , | PUNCT | _ | 20 having | punct |
| 20 | having | have | VERB | Tense=Pres VerbForm=Part | 17 follow | advcl |
| 21 | no | no | DET | PronType=Neg | 22 shroud | det |
| 22 | shroud | shroud | NOUN | Number=Sing | 20 having | obj |
| 23 | for | for | ADP | _ | 25 burial | case |
| 24 | his | his | PRON | Case=Gen Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 Poss=Yes PronType=Prs | 25 burial | nmod:poss |
| 25 | burial | burial | NOUN | Number=Sing | 20 having | obl |
| 26 | . | . | PUNCT | _ | 15 ready | punct |
Pragmatics
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | is | past | Death | slow property | tree rules | ||||
| 2 | come | gerund | Death not said here | vn escape-51.1-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme | |||||
| 3 | not is | past | it | ready property | tree rules | ||||
| 4 | follow | to-infinitive | death | vn chase-51.6 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent he=Theme | |||||
| 5 | have | gerund | no shroud | for death's burial | vn birth-28.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent shroud=Patient | ||||
| 6 | bury | death | nom burial «event 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/pg540/42/143/