The Red Fairy Book, The Black Thief and Knight of the Glen., sentence 93

I had retreated but a few paces when I observed, between me and the light, the figure of a tall black man standing in the entrance.

Who acts: I, tall black man · What happens: retreat, observe, stand, figure · To what, where: entrance, tall black man

This is a sentence of «The Red Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Black Thief and Knight of the Glen.. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (I, tall black man), 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	I	I	PRON	Case=Nom Number=Sing Person=1 PronType=Prs	3 retreated	nsubj
2	had	have	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=1 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	3 retreated	aux
3	retreated	retreat	VERB	Tense=Past VerbForm=Part	root	root
4	but	but	CCONJ	_	7 paces	cc
5	a	a	DET	Definite=Ind PronType=Art	7 paces	det
6	few	few	ADJ	Degree=Pos	7 paces	amod
7	paces	pace	NOUN	Number=Plur	3 retreated	conj
8	when	when	ADV	PronType=Int	10 observed	advmod
9	I	I	PRON	Case=Nom Number=Sing Person=1 PronType=Prs	10 observed	nsubj
10	observed	observe	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=1 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	3 retreated	advcl
11	,	,	PUNCT	_	13 me	punct
12	between	between	ADP	_	13 me	case
13	me	I	PRON	Case=Acc Number=Sing Person=1 PronType=Prs	10 observed	obl
14	and	and	CCONJ	_	16 light	cc
15	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	16 light	det
16	light	light	NOUN	Number=Sing	13 me	conj
17	,	,	PUNCT	_	19 figure	punct
18	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	19 figure	det
19	figure	figure	NOUN	Number=Sing	16 light	appos
20	of	of	ADP	_	24 man	case
21	a	a	DET	Definite=Ind PronType=Art	24 man	det
22	tall	tall	ADJ	Degree=Pos	24 man	amod
23	black	black	ADJ	Degree=Pos	24 man	amod
24	man	man	NOUN	Number=Sing	19 figure	nmod
25	standing	stand	VERB	VerbForm=Ger	24 man	acl
26	in	in	ADP	_	28 entrance	case
27	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	28 entrance	det
28	entrance	entrance	NOUN	Number=Sing	25 standing	obl
29	.	.	PUNCT	_	3 retreated	punct

Pragmatics

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	where	other	roles by
1	retreat	past · perfect	I				vn calibratable_cos-45.6.1-1 «NP.attribute V»: agent=Attribute
2	observe	past	I			between me	vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent
3	stand	gerund	a tall black man not said here		the entrance		vn assuming_position-50 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Agent in entrance=Location
4	figure			a tall black man			nom figure «communication transitive»: of=patient

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/pg540/8/93/