The Pink Fairy Book, The Pink Fairy Book, part 14, sentence 1

Off went the man to the clerk, and asked him whether he thought he could teach a bull-calf that they had to speak, for they wished so much to have it as their heir.

Who acts: man, they, bull calf · What happens: go, ask, think, teach, have, speak · To what, where: man, bull calf, much, calf · Speech: someone speaks here

This is a sentence of «The Pink Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Pink Fairy Book, part 14. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (man, they, bull calf), 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	Off	off	ADV	_	2 went	advmod
2	went	go	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=1 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	root	root
3	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	4 man	det
4	man	man	NOUN	Number=Sing	2 went	obj
5	to	to	ADP	_	7 clerk	case
6	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	7 clerk	det
7	clerk	clerk	NOUN	Number=Sing	2 went	obl
8	,	,	PUNCT	_	10 asked	punct
9	and	and	CCONJ	_	10 asked	cc
10	asked	ask	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=1 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	2 went	conj
11	him	he	PRON	Case=Acc Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	10 asked	iobj
12	whether	whether	SCONJ	_	14 thought	mark
13	he	he	PRON	Case=Nom Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	14 thought	nsubj
14	thought	think	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	10 asked	advcl
15	he	he	PRON	Case=Nom Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	17 teach	nsubj
16	could	could	AUX	VerbForm=Fin	17 teach	aux
17	teach	teach	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	14 thought	ccomp
18	a	a	DET	Definite=Ind PronType=Art	21 calf	det
19	bull	bull	NOUN	Number=Sing	21 calf	compound
20	-	-	PUNCT	_	19 bull	punct
21	calf	calf	NOUN	Number=Sing	17 teach	obj
22	that	that	PRON	PronType=Rel	24 had	obj
23	they	they	PRON	Case=Nom Number=Plur Person=3 PronType=Prs	24 had	nsubj
24	had	have	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	21 calf	acl:relcl
25	to	to	PART	_	26 speak	mark
26	speak	speak	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	24 had	xcomp
27	,	,	PUNCT	_	30 wished	punct
28	for	for	SCONJ	_	30 wished	mark
29	they	they	PRON	Case=Nom Number=Plur Person=3 PronType=Prs	30 wished	nsubj
30	wished	wish	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	26 speak	conj
31	so	so	ADV	_	32 much	advmod
32	much	much	ADJ	Degree=Pos	30 wished	obj
33	to	to	PART	_	34 have	mark
34	have	have	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	32 much	acl
35	it	it	PRON	Case=Acc Gender=Neut Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	34 have	obj
36	as	as	ADP	_	38 heir	case
37	their	their	PRON	Case=Gen Number=Plur Person=3 Poss=Yes PronType=Prs	38 heir	nmod:poss
38	heir	heir	NOUN	Number=Sing	34 have	obl
39	.	.	PUNCT	_	2 went	punct

Pragmatics

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	other	roles by
1	go	past		the man		to the clerk; off property	vn meander-47.7 «PP.location V NP»: agent=Location man=Theme
2	ask speech: ask	past			man		vn inquire-37.1.2 «NP V NP.recipient»: agent=Agent he=Recipient
3	think speech: other	past	man				vn consider-29.9-2 «NP V how S»: agent=Agent clause=Theme
4	teach speech: other	could	man		a bull calf		vn transfer_mesg-37.1.1-1-1 «NP V NP.recipient»: agent=Agent calf=Recipient
5	have	past	they	a bull calf			tree rules
6	speak speech: other	to-infinitive	a bull calf not said here				vn talk-37.5 «NP V»: agent=Agent
7	wish	past	they	much			vn wish-62 «NP V NP»: agent=Pivot much=Theme
8	have	to-infinitive		calf		as their heir	vn birth-28.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent it=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 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/pg5615/14/1/