The Red Fairy Book, Soria Moria Castle, sentence 88

They could say nothing against that, so Halvor sat down on the hearth, and began to rake about among the ashes just as he had done before, when he lay there idling away his time.

Who acts: vessels, Halvor · What happens: say, sit down, begin, rake, do, lie · To what, where: nothing, hearth, ashes · Speech: someone speaks here

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 (vessels, Halvor), 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	They	they	PRON	Case=Nom Number=Plur Person=3 PronType=Prs	3 say	nsubj
2	could	could	AUX	VerbForm=Fin	3 say	aux
3	say	say	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	root	root
4	nothing	nothing	PRON	Number=Sing PronType=Neg	3 say	obj
5	against	against	ADP	_	6 that	case
6	that	that	PRON	Number=Sing PronType=Dem	4 nothing	nmod
7	,	,	PUNCT	_	10 sat	punct
8	so	so	ADV	_	10 sat	advmod
9	Halvor	Halvor	PROPN	Number=Sing	10 sat	nsubj
10	sat	sit	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	3 say	parataxis
11	down	down	ADP	_	10 sat	compound:prt
12	on	on	ADP	_	14 hearth	case
13	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	14 hearth	det
14	hearth	hearth	NOUN	Number=Sing	10 sat	obl
15	,	,	PUNCT	_	17 began	punct
16	and	and	CCONJ	_	17 began	cc
17	began	begin	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	10 sat	conj
18	to	to	PART	_	19 rake	mark
19	rake	rake	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	17 began	xcomp
20	about	about	ADV	_	19 rake	advmod
21	among	among	ADP	_	23 ashes	case
22	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	23 ashes	det
23	ashes	ash	NOUN	Number=Plur	19 rake	obl
24	just	just	ADV	_	28 done	advmod
25	as	as	SCONJ	_	28 done	mark
26	he	he	PRON	Case=Nom Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	28 done	nsubj
27	had	have	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	28 done	aux
28	done	do	VERB	Tense=Past VerbForm=Part	19 rake	advcl
29	before	before	ADV	_	28 done	advmod
30	,	,	PUNCT	_	33 lay	punct
31	when	when	ADV	PronType=Int	33 lay	advmod
32	he	he	PRON	Case=Nom Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	33 lay	nsubj
33	lay	lie	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	17 began	advcl
34	there	there	ADV	PronType=Dem	33 lay	advmod
35	idling	idle	VERB	Tense=Pres VerbForm=Part	33 lay	advcl
36	away	away	ADV	_	35 idling	advmod
37	his	his	PRON	Case=Gen Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 Poss=Yes PronType=Prs	38 time	nmod:poss
38	time	time	NOUN	Number=Sing	35 idling	obj
39	.	.	PUNCT	_	3 say	punct

Pragmatics

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	say speech: assert	could	vessels = vessel	nothing			against that	vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V NP.topic»: agent=Agent nothing=Topic
2	sit down	past	Halvor		the hearth			vn assuming_position-50 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Agent on hearth=Location
3	begin	past	Halvor not said here					vn begin-55.1-1-1 «NP V S_INF»: agent=Agent clause=Eventuality
4	rake	to-infinitive	Halvor not said here		the ashes		about property	vn search-35.2 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Agent among ash=Location
5	do	past · perfect	Halvor				before property	vn act-114-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent
6	lie	past	Halvor		there			vn assuming_position-50 «NP V»: agent=Agent
7	idle away	gerund	Halvor not said here			time	away property	tree rules

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/pg540/6/88/