The Red Fairy Book, The Nettle Spinner, sentence 3

Now Burchard had such a wicked, cruel heart, that it was whispered how he used to harness his peasants to the plough, and force them by blows from his whip to till his land with naked feet.

Who acts: Burchard · What happens: have, whisper, use, harness, force · To what, where: wicked cruel heart, heart, peasants, whip

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 (Burchard), 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	Now	now	ADV	PronType=Dem	3 had	advmod
2	Burchard	Burchard	PROPN	Number=Sing	3 had	nsubj
3	had	have	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	root	root
4	such	such	DET	PronType=Ind	9 heart	det:predet
5	a	a	DET	Definite=Ind PronType=Art	9 heart	det
6	wicked	wicked	ADJ	Degree=Pos	9 heart	amod
7	,	,	PUNCT	_	6 wicked	punct
8	cruel	cruel	ADJ	Degree=Pos	9 heart	amod
9	heart	heart	NOUN	Number=Sing	3 had	obj
10	,	,	PUNCT	_	14 whispered	punct
11	that	that	SCONJ	_	14 whispered	mark
12	it	it	PRON	Case=Nom Gender=Neut Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	14 whispered	nsubj:pass
13	was	be	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	14 whispered	aux:pass
14	whispered	whisper	VERB	Tense=Past VerbForm=Part Voice=Pass	3 had	conj
15	how	how	ADV	PronType=Int	17 used	advmod
16	he	he	PRON	Case=Nom Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	17 used	nsubj
17	used	use	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	14 whispered	advcl
18	to	to	PART	_	19 harness	mark
19	harness	harness	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	17 used	xcomp
20	his	his	PRON	Case=Gen Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 Poss=Yes PronType=Prs	21 peasants	nmod:poss
21	peasants	peasant	NOUN	Number=Plur	19 harness	obj
22	to	to	ADP	_	24 plough	case
23	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	24 plough	det
24	plough	plough	NOUN	Number=Sing	19 harness	obl
25	,	,	PUNCT	_	27 force	punct
26	and	and	CCONJ	_	27 force	cc
27	force	force	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	3 had	conj
28	them	they	PRON	Case=Acc Number=Plur Person=3 PronType=Prs	27 force	obj
29	by	by	ADP	_	30 blows	case
30	blows	blow	NOUN	Number=Plur	27 force	obl
31	from	from	ADP	_	33 whip	case
32	his	his	PRON	Case=Gen Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 Poss=Yes PronType=Prs	33 whip	nmod:poss
33	whip	whip	NOUN	Number=Sing	27 force	obl
34	to	to	PART	_	37 land	mark
35	till	till	ADP	_	37 land	case
36	his	his	PRON	Case=Gen Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 Poss=Yes PronType=Prs	37 land	nmod:poss
37	land	land	NOUN	Number=Sing	27 force	xcomp
38	with	with	ADP	_	40 feet	case
39	naked	naked	ADJ	Degree=Pos	40 feet	amod
40	feet	foot	NOUN	Number=Plur	37 land	nmod
41	.	.	PUNCT	_	3 had	punct

Pragmatics

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	have	past	Burchard	such wicked cruel heart		now		vn birth-28.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent heart=Patient
2	whisper speech: assert	past · passive		heart				vn manner_speaking-37.3 «NP V NP»: subject=Topic
3	use	past	Burchard					vn use-105.1 «NP V NP S_INF»: agent=Agent clause=Eventuality
4	harness	to-infinitive	Burchard not said here	Burchard's peasants			to the plough	vn tape-22.4 «NP V NP PP.co-patient»: agent=Agent peasant=Patient to plough=Co-Patient
5	force	infinitive	Burchard not said here	peasants = peasant	Burchard's whip		by blows	vn urge-58.1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent they=Recipient

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/pg540/42/3/