The Red Fairy Book, Mother Holle, part 1, sentence 59

There was once upon a time a couple of needy folk who lived in a wretched hut, in which there was nothing but black want; so they had neither food to eat nor wood to burn.

Who acts: couple, ’s · What happens: be, live, have, eat, burn · To what, where: wretched hut, food

This is a sentence of «The Red Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Mother Holle, part 1. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (couple, ’s), 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	There	there	PRON	PronType=Dem	2 was	expl
2	was	be	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	root	root
3	once	once	ADV	NumForm=Word NumType=Mult	2 was	advmod
4	upon	upon	ADP	_	6 time	case
5	a	a	DET	Definite=Ind PronType=Art	6 time	det
6	time	time	NOUN	Number=Sing	2 was	obl
7	a	a	DET	Definite=Ind PronType=Art	8 couple	det
8	couple	couple	NOUN	Number=Sing	6 time	appos
9	of	of	ADP	_	11 folk	case
10	needy	needy	ADJ	Degree=Pos	11 folk	amod
11	folk	folk	NOUN	Number=Sing	8 couple	nmod
12	who	who	PRON	PronType=Rel	13 lived	nsubj
13	lived	live	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	8 couple	acl:relcl
14	in	in	ADP	_	17 hut	case
15	a	a	DET	Definite=Ind PronType=Art	17 hut	det
16	wretched	wretched	ADJ	Degree=Pos	17 hut	amod
17	hut	hut	NOUN	Number=Sing	13 lived	obl
18	,	,	PUNCT	_	22 was	punct
19	in	in	ADP	_	20 which	case
20	which	which	PRON	PronType=Rel	22 was	obl
21	there	there	PRON	PronType=Dem	22 was	expl
22	was	be	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	17 hut	acl:relcl
23	nothing	nothing	PRON	Number=Sing PronType=Neg	22 was	nsubj
24	but	but	CCONJ	_	25 black	cc
25	black	black	ADJ	Degree=Pos	23 nothing	amod
26	want	want	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	25 black	cop
27	;	;	PUNCT	_	30 had	punct
28	so	so	ADV	_	30 had	advmod
29	they	they	PRON	Case=Nom Number=Plur Person=3 PronType=Prs	30 had	nsubj
30	had	have	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	2 was	parataxis
31	neither	neither	DET	PronType=Neg	32 food	det
32	food	food	NOUN	Number=Sing	30 had	obj
33	to	to	PART	_	34 eat	mark
34	eat	eat	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	32 food	acl
35	nor	nor	CCONJ	Polarity=Neg	36 wood	cc
36	wood	wood	NOUN	Number=Sing	34 eat	conj
37	to	to	PART	_	38 burn	mark
38	burn	burn	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	34 eat	advcl
39	.	.	PUNCT	_	2 was	punct

Pragmatics

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	be	past			there	time	once property	vn exist-47.1 «NP V»: agent=Theme
2	live	past	a couple of needy folk		a wretched hut			vn lodge-46 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Theme in hut=Location
3	is	present					black property	tree rules
4	have	past	’s = '	neither food				vn birth-28.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent food=Patient
5	eat	to-infinitive	’s = ' not said here	neither food not said here				vn eat-39.1-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent
6	burn	to-infinitive	’s = ' not said here					vn light_emission-43.1 «NP V»: agent=Theme

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/pg540/44/59/