The Red Fairy Book, Soria Moria Castle, sentence 2

Ever since he had been a little boy he had been unwilling to do any work, and had just sat raking about among the ashes.

Who acts: couple · What happens: be, unwill, do, have, sit, rake · To what, where: little boy, work, ashes

This is a sentence of «The Red Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Soria Moria Castle. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (couple), 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	Ever	ever	ADV	PronType=Ind	8 boy	advmod
2	since	since	SCONJ	_	8 boy	mark
3	he	he	PRON	Case=Nom Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	8 boy	nsubj
4	had	have	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	8 boy	aux
5	been	be	AUX	Tense=Past VerbForm=Part	8 boy	cop
6	a	a	DET	Definite=Ind PronType=Art	8 boy	det
7	little	little	ADJ	Degree=Pos	8 boy	amod
8	boy	boy	NOUN	Number=Sing	root	root
9	he	he	PRON	Case=Nom Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	12 unwilling	nsubj
10	had	have	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	12 unwilling	aux
11	been	be	AUX	Tense=Past VerbForm=Part	12 unwilling	aux
12	unwilling	unwill	VERB	Tense=Pres VerbForm=Part	8 boy	acl:relcl
13	to	to	PART	_	14 do	mark
14	do	do	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	12 unwilling	xcomp
15	any	any	DET	PronType=Ind	16 work	det
16	work	work	NOUN	Number=Sing	14 do	obj
17	,	,	PUNCT	_	19 had	punct
18	and	and	CCONJ	_	19 had	cc
19	had	have	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=1 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	12 unwilling	parataxis
20	just	just	ADV	_	21 sat	advmod
21	sat	sit	VERB	Mood=Ind Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	19 had	ccomp
22	raking	rake	VERB	Tense=Pres VerbForm=Part	21 sat	advcl
23	about	about	ADV	_	22 raking	advmod
24	among	among	ADP	_	26 ashes	case
25	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	26 ashes	det
26	ashes	ash	NOUN	Number=Plur	22 raking	obl
27	.	.	PUNCT	_	8 boy	punct

Pragmatics

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	is a	past · perfect	couple	a little boy		ever		tree rules
2	unwill	past · perfect · progressive	couple	a little boy not said here				tree rules
3	do	to-infinitive	couple not said here	any work				vn act-114-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent work=Eventuality
4	have	past						tree rules
5	sit	past						vn assuming_position-50 «NP V»: agent=Agent
6	rake	gerund			the ashes		about property	vn search-35.2 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Agent among ash=Location

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.

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