The Red Fairy Book, The Story of Sigurd, sentence 1
(This is a very old story: the Danes who used to fight with the English in King Alfred’s time knew this story.
Who acts: This, Danes · What happens: be, use, fight, know · To what, where: old story, story
This is a sentence of «The Red Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Story of Sigurd. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (This, Danes), 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 | ( | ( | PUNCT | _ | 7 story | punct |
| 2 | This | this | PRON | Number=Sing PronType=Dem | 7 story | nsubj |
| 3 | is | be | AUX | Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin | 7 story | cop |
| 4 | a | a | DET | Definite=Ind PronType=Art | 7 story | det |
| 5 | very | very | ADV | _ | 6 old | advmod |
| 6 | old | old | ADJ | Degree=Pos | 7 story | amod |
| 7 | story | story | NOUN | Number=Sing | root | root |
| 8 | : | : | PUNCT | _ | 10 Danes | punct |
| 9 | the | the | DET | Definite=Def PronType=Art | 10 Danes | det |
| 10 | Danes | Dane | PROPN | Number=Plur | 23 knew | nsubj |
| 11 | who | who | PRON | PronType=Rel | 12 used | nsubj |
| 12 | used | use | VERB | Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | 10 Danes | acl:relcl |
| 13 | to | to | PART | _ | 14 fight | mark |
| 14 | fight | fight | VERB | VerbForm=Inf | 12 used | xcomp |
| 15 | with | with | ADP | _ | 17 English | case |
| 16 | the | the | DET | Definite=Def PronType=Art | 17 English | det |
| 17 | English | English | PROPN | Number=Sing | 14 fight | obl |
| 18 | in | in | ADP | _ | 22 time | case |
| 19 | King | King | PROPN | Number=Sing | 22 time | nmod:poss |
| 20 | Alfred | Alfred | PROPN | Number=Sing | 19 King | flat |
| 21 | ’s | 's | PART | _ | 19 King | case |
| 22 | time | time | NOUN | Number=Sing | 14 fight | obl |
| 23 | knew | know | VERB | Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | 7 story | parataxis |
| 24 | this | this | DET | Number=Sing PronType=Dem | 25 story | det |
| 25 | story | story | NOUN | Number=Sing | 23 knew | obj |
| 26 | . | . | PUNCT | _ | 7 story | punct |
Pragmatics
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | is a | present | This | a old story | tree rules | ||||
| 2 | use | past | the Danes | vn use-105.1 «NP V NP S_INF»: agent=Agent clause=Eventuality | |||||
| 3 | fight | to-infinitive | the Danes not said here | time | with the English | vn battle-36.4-1 «NP V PP.co-agent»: agent=Agent with english=Co-Agent | |||
| 4 | know | past | the Danes | this story | vn comprehend-87.2-1-1-1 «NP V NP PP.attribute»: agent=Experiencer story=Stimulus |
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/pg540/51/1/