The Red Fairy Book, The Master Thief, sentence 28

In the meantime the boy got up and began to talk to them, and ask them if they did not want a man-servant, for he could find pleasure enough in serving them.

Who acts: boy, robbers · What happens: get up, begin, talk, ask, not want, find · To what, where: meantime, robbers, man servant, pleasure

This is a sentence of «The Red Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Master Thief. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (boy, robbers), 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	In	in	ADP	_	3 meantime	case
2	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	3 meantime	det
3	meantime	meantime	NOUN	Number=Sing	6 got	obl
4	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	5 boy	det
5	boy	boy	NOUN	Number=Sing	6 got	nsubj
6	got	get	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	root	root
7	up	up	ADP	_	6 got	compound:prt
8	and	and	CCONJ	_	9 began	cc
9	began	begin	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	6 got	conj
10	to	to	PART	_	11 talk	mark
11	talk	talk	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	9 began	xcomp
12	to	to	ADP	_	13 them	case
13	them	they	PRON	Case=Acc Number=Plur Person=3 PronType=Prs	11 talk	obl
14	,	,	PUNCT	_	16 ask	punct
15	and	and	CCONJ	_	16 ask	cc
16	ask	ask	VERB	Mood=Imp VerbForm=Fin	6 got	parataxis
17	them	they	PRON	Case=Acc Number=Plur Person=3 PronType=Prs	16 ask	obj
18	if	if	SCONJ	_	22 want	mark
19	they	they	PRON	Case=Nom Number=Plur Person=3 PronType=Prs	22 want	nsubj
20	did	do	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	22 want	aux
21	not	not	PART	Polarity=Neg	22 want	advmod
22	want	want	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	16 ask	ccomp
23	a	a	DET	Definite=Ind PronType=Art	26 servant	det
24	man	man	NOUN	Number=Sing	26 servant	compound
25	-	-	PUNCT	_	24 man	punct
26	servant	servant	NOUN	Number=Sing	22 want	obj
27	,	,	PUNCT	_	31 find	punct
28	for	for	SCONJ	_	31 find	mark
29	he	he	PRON	Case=Nom Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	31 find	nsubj
30	could	could	AUX	VerbForm=Fin	31 find	aux
31	find	find	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	22 want	conj
32	pleasure	pleasure	NOUN	Number=Sing	31 find	obj
33	enough	enough	ADJ	Degree=Pos	31 find	obj
34	in	in	SCONJ	_	35 serving	mark
35	serving	serve	VERB	Tense=Pres VerbForm=Part	31 find	advcl
36	them	they	PRON	Case=Acc Number=Plur Person=3 PronType=Prs	35 serving	obj
37	.	.	PUNCT	_	6 got	punct

Pragmatics

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	roles by
1	get up	past	the boy			the meantime	vn comprehend-87.2-1 «NP V S_ING»: agent=Experiencer
2	begin	past	the boy not said here				vn begin-55.1-1-1 «NP V S_INF»: agent=Agent clause=Eventuality
3	talk	to-infinitive	the boy not said here		robbers = robber		vn talk-37.5 «NP V PP.co-agent»: agent=Agent to they=Co-Agent
4	ask speech: ask	infinitive			robbers = robber		vn inquire-37.1.2 «NP V NP whether S»: agent=Agent they=Recipient clause=Topic
5	not want a condition, not said to happen	past · do-support	robbers = robber	a man servant			vn want-32.1-1-1 «NP V NP ADV»: agent=Pivot servant=Theme
6	find	could	boy	pleasure			vn declare-29.4-1-1 «NP V NP ADJ»: agent=Agent pleasure=Theme enough=Attribute
7	serve	gerund	boy not said here	robbers = robber			vn masquerade-29.6-2 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent they=Attribute

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/pg540/9/28/