The Pink Fairy Book, The Pink Fairy Book, part 28, sentence 5

There was once a man who had twelve sons: the eleven eldest were both big and strong, but the twelfth, whose name was Esben, was only a little fellow.

Who acts: man, eldest, name, twelfth Esben · What happens: be, have, name · To what, where: twelve sons, twelfth Esben, little fellow

This is a sentence of «The Pink Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Pink Fairy Book, part 28. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (man, eldest, name, twelfth Esben), 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	There	there	PRON	PronType=Dem	2 was	expl
2	was	be	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	root	root
3	once	once	ADV	NumForm=Word NumType=Mult	2 was	advmod
4	a	a	DET	Definite=Ind PronType=Art	5 man	det
5	man	man	NOUN	Number=Sing	2 was	nsubj
6	who	who	PRON	PronType=Rel	7 had	nsubj
7	had	have	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	5 man	acl:relcl
8	twelve	twelve	NUM	NumForm=Word NumType=Card	9 sons	nummod
9	sons	son	NOUN	Number=Plur	7 had	obj
10	:	:	PUNCT	_	12 eleven	punct
11	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	12 eleven	det
12	eleven	eleven	NUM	NumForm=Word NumType=Card	9 sons	appos
13	eldest	eld	ADJ	Degree=Sup	16 big	nsubj
14	were	be	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	16 big	cop
15	both	both	ADV	_	16 big	advmod
16	big	big	ADJ	Degree=Pos	12 eleven	acl:relcl
17	and	and	CCONJ	_	18 strong	cc
18	strong	strong	ADJ	Degree=Pos	16 big	conj
19	,	,	PUNCT	_	33 fellow	punct
20	but	but	CCONJ	_	33 fellow	cc
21	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	27 Esben	det
22	twelfth	twelfth	ADJ	Degree=Pos	27 Esben	amod
23	,	,	PUNCT	_	27 Esben	punct
24	whose	whose	PRON	Poss=Yes PronType=Rel	25 name	nmod:poss
25	name	name	NOUN	Number=Sing	27 Esben	nsubj
26	was	be	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	27 Esben	cop
27	Esben	Esben	PROPN	Number=Sing	33 fellow	nsubj
28	,	,	PUNCT	_	27 Esben	punct
29	was	be	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	33 fellow	cop
30	only	only	ADV	_	33 fellow	advmod
31	a	a	DET	Definite=Ind PronType=Art	33 fellow	det
32	little	little	ADJ	Degree=Pos	33 fellow	amod
33	fellow	fellow	NOUN	Number=Sing	2 was	obl
34	.	.	PUNCT	_	2 was	punct

Pragmatics

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	where	other	roles by
1	be	past	a man		there	once property	vn exist-47.1 «NP V»: agent=Theme
2	have	past	a man	twelve sons			vn birth-28.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent son=Patient
3	is	past	eldest			big, both property	tree rules
4	be		eldest not said here				tree rules
5	is a	past	the twelfth Esben's name	the twelfth Esben			tree rules
6	is a	past	the twelfth Esben	a little fellow			tree rules
7	name		the twelfth Esben				nom name «communication transitive»: poss=agent

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/pg5615/28/5/