The Pink Fairy Book, The Pink Fairy Book, part 1, sentence 52

Her servants had orders to drive him away as often as he appeared; but as they were careless, and the serpent very sly, it sometimes happened that he was able to slip past them, and to frighten the princess by appearing before her.

Who acts: servants, orders, servant, it · What happens: have, drive away, appear, be, happen, slip · To what, where: orders, servant, princess

This is a sentence of «The Pink Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Pink Fairy Book, part 1. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (servants, orders, servant, it), 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	Her	her	PRON	Case=Gen Gender=Fem Number=Sing Person=3 Poss=Yes PronType=Prs	2 servants	nmod:poss
2	servants	servant	NOUN	Number=Plur	3 had	nsubj
3	had	have	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	root	root
4	orders	order	NOUN	Number=Plur	3 had	obj
5	to	to	PART	_	6 drive	mark
6	drive	drive	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	3 had	xcomp
7	him	he	PRON	Case=Acc Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	6 drive	obj
8	away	away	ADV	_	6 drive	advmod
9	as	as	ADV	_	10 often	advmod
10	often	often	ADV	_	6 drive	advmod
11	as	as	SCONJ	_	13 appeared	mark
12	he	he	PRON	Case=Nom Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	13 appeared	nsubj
13	appeared	appear	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	10 often	advcl
14	;	;	PUNCT	_	29 happened	punct
15	but	but	CCONJ	_	29 happened	cc
16	as	as	SCONJ	_	19 careless	mark
17	they	they	PRON	Case=Nom Number=Plur Person=3 PronType=Prs	19 careless	nsubj
18	were	be	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	19 careless	cop
19	careless	careless	ADJ	Degree=Pos	29 happened	advcl
20	,	,	PUNCT	_	23 serpent	punct
21	and	and	CCONJ	_	23 serpent	cc
22	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	23 serpent	det
23	serpent	serpent	NOUN	Number=Sing	19 careless	conj
24	very	very	ADV	_	25 sly	advmod
25	sly	sly	ADV	_	23 serpent	advmod
26	,	,	PUNCT	_	19 careless	punct
27	it	it	PRON	Case=Nom Gender=Neut Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	29 happened	nsubj
28	sometimes	sometimes	ADV	PronType=Ind	29 happened	advmod
29	happened	happen	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	3 had	parataxis
30	that	that	SCONJ	_	33 able	mark
31	he	he	PRON	Case=Nom Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	33 able	nsubj
32	was	be	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	33 able	cop
33	able	able	ADJ	Degree=Pos	29 happened	advcl
34	to	to	PART	_	35 slip	mark
35	slip	slip	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	33 able	xcomp
36	past	past	ADP	_	37 them	case
37	them	they	PRON	Case=Acc Number=Plur Person=3 PronType=Prs	35 slip	obl
38	,	,	PUNCT	_	41 frighten	punct
39	and	and	CCONJ	_	41 frighten	cc
40	to	to	PART	_	41 frighten	mark
41	frighten	frighten	VERB	Mood=Imp VerbForm=Fin	29 happened	parataxis
42	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	43 princess	det
43	princess	princess	NOUN	Number=Sing	41 frighten	obj
44	by	by	SCONJ	_	45 appearing	mark
45	appearing	appear	VERB	Tense=Pres VerbForm=Part	41 frighten	advcl
46	before	before	ADP	_	47 her	case
47	her	she	PRON	Case=Acc Gender=Fem Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	45 appearing	obl
48	.	.	PUNCT	_	3 had	punct

Pragmatics

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	when	other	roles by
1	have	past	Princess's servants	orders			tree rules
2	drive away	to-infinitive	orders not said here	servant		away, often property	vn nonvehicle-51.4.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent he=Theme
3	appear	past	servant				vn appear-48.1.1 «NP V»: agent=Theme
4	is	past	orders = order			careless property	tree rules
5	happen	past	it			sometimes property	vn occur-48.3-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme
6	is	past	servant			able property	tree rules
7	slip	to-infinitive	servant not said here			past orders = order	vn calibratable_cos-45.6.1-1 «NP.attribute V»: agent=Attribute
8	frighten	to-infinitive		the princess			vn amuse-31.1 «NP V NP»: agent=Stimulus princess=Experiencer
9	appear	gerund			before Princess		vn appear-48.1.1 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Theme before she=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 Pink Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Project Gutenberg book 5615 (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/pg5615/1/52/