Russian Folk-Tales, Opening, part 39, sentence 152
He was a dragon-slayer, but his principal employment was as ambassador.
Who acts: Vladímir, principal employment · What happens: be, employ · To what, where: dragon slayer
This is a sentence of «Russian Folk-Tales» by A. N. Afanas'ev, Opening, part 39. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Vladímir, principal employment), 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 | 6 slayer | nsubj |
| 2 | was | be | AUX | Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | 6 slayer | cop |
| 3 | a | a | DET | Definite=Ind PronType=Art | 6 slayer | det |
| 4 | dragon | dragon | NOUN | Number=Sing | 6 slayer | compound |
| 5 | - | - | PUNCT | _ | 4 dragon | punct |
| 6 | slayer | slayer | NOUN | Number=Sing | root | root |
| 7 | , | , | PUNCT | _ | 14 ambassador | punct |
| 8 | but | but | CCONJ | _ | 14 ambassador | cc |
| 9 | his | his | PRON | Case=Gen Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 Poss=Yes PronType=Prs | 11 employment | nmod:poss |
| 10 | principal | principal | ADJ | Degree=Pos | 11 employment | amod |
| 11 | employment | employment | NOUN | Number=Sing | 14 ambassador | nsubj |
| 12 | was | be | AUX | Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | 14 ambassador | cop |
| 13 | as | as | ADP | _ | 14 ambassador | case |
| 14 | ambassador | ambassador | NOUN | Number=Sing | 6 slayer | conj |
| 15 | . | . | PUNCT | _ | 6 slayer | punct |
Pragmatics
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | is a | past | Vladímir | a dragon slayer but ambassador | tree rules | ||||
| 2 | is | past | Vladímir's principal employment | as ambassador | tree rules | ||||
| 3 | employ | Vladímir | nom employment «state 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: «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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