Russian Folk-Tales, Opening, part 34, sentence 1
The merchant was frightened, fell on his knees and besought pardon.
Who acts: merchant · What happens: frighten, fall, beseech · To what, where: merchant, knees, pardon
This is a sentence of «Russian Folk-Tales» by A. N. Afanas'ev, Opening, part 34. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (merchant), 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 | The | the | DET | Definite=Def PronType=Art | 2 merchant | det |
| 2 | merchant | merchant | NOUN | Number=Sing | 6 fell | nsubj |
| 3 | was | be | AUX | Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | 4 frightened | aux:pass |
| 4 | frightened | frighten | VERB | Tense=Past VerbForm=Part Voice=Pass | 2 merchant | acl |
| 5 | , | , | PUNCT | _ | 2 merchant | punct |
| 6 | fell | fall | VERB | Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | root | root |
| 7 | on | on | ADP | _ | 9 knees | case |
| 8 | his | his | PRON | Case=Gen Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 Poss=Yes PronType=Prs | 9 knees | nmod:poss |
| 9 | knees | knee | NOUN | Number=Plur | 6 fell | obl |
| 10 | and | and | CCONJ | _ | 11 besought | cc |
| 11 | besought | beseech | VERB | Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | 6 fell | conj |
| 12 | pardon | pardon | NOUN | Number=Sing | 11 besought | obj |
| 13 | . | . | PUNCT | _ | 6 fell | punct |
Pragmatics
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | frighten | past · passive | the merchant not said here | vn amuse-31.1 «NP V ADV-Middle» | |||||
| 2 | fall | past | the merchant | merchant's knees | vn occur-48.3 «NP V PP»: agent=Theme on knee=Location | ||||
| 3 | beseech | past | the merchant not said here | pardon | 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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