Russian Folk-Tales, Opening, part 25, sentence 4
He began to ask him questions, but never an answer, never a movement!
Who acts: He · What happens: begin, ask · To what, where: questions, him
This is a sentence of «Russian Folk-Tales» by A. N. Afanas'ev, Opening, part 25. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (He), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.
Mova's own parse. This tree may be wrong.
The tree
The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)
| # | word | lemma | UPOS | features | head | relation |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | He | he | PRON | Case=Nom Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs | 2 began | nsubj |
| 2 | began | begin | VERB | Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | root | root |
| 3 | to | to | PART | _ | 4 ask | mark |
| 4 | ask | ask | VERB | VerbForm=Inf | 2 began | xcomp |
| 5 | him | he | PRON | Case=Acc Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs | 4 ask | obj |
| 6 | questions | question | NOUN | Number=Plur | 4 ask | obj |
| 7 | , | , | PUNCT | _ | 11 answer | punct |
| 8 | but | but | CCONJ | _ | 11 answer | cc |
| 9 | never | never | ADV | PronType=Neg | 11 answer | advmod |
| 10 | an | a | DET | Definite=Ind PronType=Art | 11 answer | det |
| 11 | answer | answer | NOUN | Number=Sing | 2 began | parataxis |
| 12 | , | , | PUNCT | _ | 15 movement | punct |
| 13 | never | never | ADV | PronType=Neg | 15 movement | advmod |
| 14 | a | a | DET | Definite=Ind PronType=Art | 15 movement | det |
| 15 | movement | movement | NOUN | Number=Sing | 11 answer | conj |
| 16 | ! | ! | PUNCT | _ | 2 began | punct |
Pragmatics
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | begin | past | He | a answer and a movement parataxis | vn begin-55.1-1-1 «NP V S_INF»: agent=Agent clause=Eventuality | ||||
| 2 | ask speech: ask | to-infinitive | He not said here | questions | him = he | tree rules |
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: «Russian Folk-Tales» by A. N. Afanas'ev, Project Gutenberg book 62509 (public domain in the USA). Tree: Mova's own parse, Elamur Cosmic License. Frames: Mova's frames reader (prag), the chapter read in order.
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