Russian Folk-Tales, Opening, part 35, sentence 56
And the neighbours whispered: “What on earth does he mean?
Who acts: neighbours, peasant · What happens: whisper, mean · To what, where: earth · Speech: someone speaks here
This is a sentence of «Russian Folk-Tales» by A. N. Afanas'ev, Opening, part 35. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (neighbours, peasant), 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 | And | and | CCONJ | _ | 4 whispered | cc |
| 2 | the | the | DET | Definite=Def PronType=Art | 3 neighbours | det |
| 3 | neighbours | neighbour | NOUN | Number=Plur | 4 whispered | nsubj |
| 4 | whispered | whisper | VERB | Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | root | root |
| 5 | : | : | PUNCT | _ | 12 mean | punct |
| 6 | “ | " | PUNCT | _ | 12 mean | punct |
| 7 | What | what | PRON | PronType=Int | 12 mean | obj |
| 8 | on | on | ADP | _ | 9 earth | case |
| 9 | earth | earth | NOUN | Number=Sing | 7 What | nmod |
| 10 | does | do | AUX | Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin | 12 mean | aux |
| 11 | he | he | PRON | Case=Nom Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs | 12 mean | nsubj |
| 12 | mean | mean | VERB | VerbForm=Inf | 4 whispered | ccomp |
| 13 | ? | ? | PUNCT | _ | 4 whispered | punct |
Pragmatics
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | whisper speech: ask | past | the neighbours | vn manner_speaking-37.3 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent clause=Topic | |||||
| 2 | mean in a quote | present · do-support | peasant | earth | What obj | vn intend-61.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent what=Topic |
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.
This page in Markdown → https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg62509/35/56/