The Red Fairy Book, The Nettle Spinner, sentence 81

Two hours after there arrived some soldiers, and when they saw her spinning they seized her, tied her arms and legs, and carried her to the bank of the river, which was swollen by the late rains.

Who acts: Two hours, soldiers, girl, late rains · What happens: arrive, see, spin, seize, tie, carry · To what, where: soldiers, girl, arms, bank, river

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 (Two hours, soldiers, girl, late rains), 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	Two	two	NUM	NumForm=Word NumType=Card	2 hours	nummod
2	hours	hour	NOUN	Number=Plur	5 arrived	nsubj
3	after	after	ADP	_	4 there	case
4	there	there	ADV	PronType=Dem	2 hours	nmod
5	arrived	arrive	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	root	root
6	some	some	DET	PronType=Ind	7 soldiers	det
7	soldiers	soldier	NOUN	Number=Plur	5 arrived	obj
8	,	,	PUNCT	_	12 saw	punct
9	and	and	CCONJ	_	12 saw	cc
10	when	when	ADV	PronType=Int	12 saw	advmod
11	they	they	PRON	Case=Nom Number=Plur Person=3 PronType=Prs	12 saw	nsubj
12	saw	see	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	5 arrived	conj
13	her	she	PRON	Case=Acc Gender=Fem Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	12 saw	obj
14	spinning	spin	VERB	VerbForm=Ger	12 saw	xcomp
15	they	they	PRON	Case=Nom Number=Plur Person=3 PronType=Prs	16 seized	nsubj
16	seized	seize	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	14 spinning	ccomp
17	her	she	PRON	Case=Acc Gender=Fem Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	16 seized	obj
18	,	,	PUNCT	_	19 tied	punct
19	tied	tie	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	16 seized	conj
20	her	her	PRON	Case=Gen Gender=Fem Number=Sing Person=3 Poss=Yes PronType=Prs	21 arms	nmod:poss
21	arms	arm	NOUN	Number=Plur	19 tied	obj
22	and	and	CCONJ	_	23 legs	cc
23	legs	leg	NOUN	Number=Plur	21 arms	conj
24	,	,	PUNCT	_	26 carried	punct
25	and	and	CCONJ	_	26 carried	cc
26	carried	carry	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	5 arrived	conj
27	her	she	PRON	Case=Acc Gender=Fem Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	26 carried	obj
28	to	to	ADP	_	30 bank	case
29	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	30 bank	det
30	bank	bank	NOUN	Number=Sing	26 carried	obl
31	of	of	ADP	_	33 river	case
32	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	33 river	det
33	river	river	NOUN	Number=Sing	30 bank	nmod
34	,	,	PUNCT	_	37 swollen	punct
35	which	which	PRON	PronType=Rel	37 swollen	nsubj:pass
36	was	be	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	37 swollen	aux:pass
37	swollen	swell	VERB	Tense=Past VerbForm=Part Voice=Pass	33 river	acl:relcl
38	by	by	ADP	_	41 rains	case
39	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	41 rains	det
40	late	late	ADJ	Degree=Pos	41 rains	amod
41	rains	rain	NOUN	Number=Plur	37 swollen	obl
42	.	.	PUNCT	_	5 arrived	punct

Pragmatics

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	where	roles by
1	arrive	past	Two hours	some soldiers		tree rules
2	see	past	soldiers = soldier	girl		tree rules
3	spin	gerund	girl not said here			tree rules
4	seize	past	soldiers = soldier	girl		vn obtain-13.5.2 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent she=Theme
5	tie	past	soldiers = soldier not said here	girl's arms and legs		vn mix-22.1-2 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent arm=Patient
6	carry	past	Two hours not said here	girl	the bank of the river	vn carry-11.4 «NP V NP PP.destination»: agent=Agent she=Theme to bank=Destination
7	swell	past · passive	the late rains	the river		vn calibratable_cos-45.6.1-1 «NP.patient V NP.extent PP.source PP.goal»: agent=Patient subject=Extent

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/pg540/42/81/