The Pink Fairy Book, The Pink Fairy Book, part 5, sentence 127
‘They used to say I was a pretty little fellow; then I lay in a velvet-covered chair in my master’s house.
Who acts: people, I · What happens: use, say, be, lay, cover · To what, where: pretty little fellow, covered chair · Speech: someone speaks here
This is a sentence of «The Pink Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Pink Fairy Book, part 5. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (people, I), 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 | ‘ | ' | PUNCT | _ | 3 used | punct |
| 2 | They | they | PRON | Case=Nom Number=Plur Person=3 PronType=Prs | 3 used | nsubj |
| 3 | used | use | VERB | Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | root | root |
| 4 | to | to | PART | _ | 5 say | mark |
| 5 | say | say | VERB | VerbForm=Inf | 3 used | xcomp |
| 6 | I | I | PRON | Case=Nom Number=Sing Person=1 PronType=Prs | 11 fellow | nsubj |
| 7 | was | be | AUX | Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | 11 fellow | cop |
| 8 | a | a | DET | Definite=Ind PronType=Art | 11 fellow | det |
| 9 | pretty | pretty | ADJ | Degree=Pos | 11 fellow | amod |
| 10 | little | little | ADJ | Degree=Pos | 11 fellow | amod |
| 11 | fellow | fellow | NOUN | Number=Sing | 5 say | ccomp |
| 12 | ; | ; | PUNCT | _ | 15 lay | punct |
| 13 | then | then | ADV | PronType=Dem | 15 lay | advmod |
| 14 | I | I | PRON | Case=Nom Number=Sing Person=1 PronType=Prs | 15 lay | nsubj |
| 15 | lay | lay | VERB | Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=1 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin | 3 used | conj |
| 16 | in | in | ADP | _ | 21 chair | case |
| 17 | a | a | DET | Definite=Ind PronType=Art | 21 chair | det |
| 18 | velvet | velvet | NOUN | Number=Sing | 20 covered | compound |
| 19 | - | - | PUNCT | _ | 18 velvet | punct |
| 20 | covered | cover | VERB | Tense=Past VerbForm=Part Voice=Pass | 21 chair | amod |
| 21 | chair | chair | NOUN | Number=Sing | 15 lay | obl |
| 22 | in | in | ADP | _ | 26 house | case |
| 23 | my | my | PRON | Case=Gen Number=Sing Person=1 Poss=Yes PronType=Prs | 24 master | nmod:poss |
| 24 | master | master | NOUN | Number=Sing | 26 house | nmod:poss |
| 25 | ’s | 's | PART | _ | 24 master | case |
| 26 | house | house | NOUN | Number=Sing | 15 lay | obl |
| 27 | . | . | PUNCT | _ | 3 used | punct |
Pragmatics
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | use | past | people | vn use-105.1 «NP V NP S_INF»: agent=Agent clause=Eventuality | |||||
| 2 | say speech: assert | to-infinitive | people not said here | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent | |||||
| 3 | is a | past | I | a pretty little fellow | tree rules | ||||
| 4 | lay | present | I | a covered chair | then | in my master's house | vn put_spatial-9.2 «NP V NP PP.destination»: agent=Agent in chair=Destination | ||
| 5 | cover | participle | vn fill-9.8-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Theme |
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/pg5615/5/127/