Russian Folk-Tales, Opening, part 39, sentence 85
“There was an owl flying across a garden, and it sat over a well and sipped the water.
Who acts: owl · What happens: be, fly, sit, sip · To what, where: garden, well, water
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 (owl), 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 | “ | " | PUNCT | _ | 3 was | punct |
| 2 | There | there | PRON | PronType=Dem | 3 was | expl |
| 3 | was | be | VERB | Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | 13 sat | parataxis |
| 4 | an | a | DET | Definite=Ind PronType=Art | 5 owl | det |
| 5 | owl | owl | NOUN | Number=Sing | 3 was | nsubj |
| 6 | flying | fly | VERB | VerbForm=Ger | 5 owl | acl |
| 7 | across | across | ADP | _ | 9 garden | case |
| 8 | a | a | DET | Definite=Ind PronType=Art | 9 garden | det |
| 9 | garden | garden | NOUN | Number=Sing | 6 flying | obl |
| 10 | , | , | PUNCT | _ | 13 sat | punct |
| 11 | and | and | CCONJ | _ | 13 sat | cc |
| 12 | it | it | PRON | Case=Nom Gender=Neut Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs | 13 sat | nsubj |
| 13 | sat | sit | VERB | Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | root | root |
| 14 | over | over | ADP | _ | 16 well | case |
| 15 | a | a | DET | Definite=Ind PronType=Art | 16 well | det |
| 16 | well | well | NOUN | Number=Sing | 13 sat | obl |
| 17 | and | and | CCONJ | _ | 18 sipped | cc |
| 18 | sipped | sip | VERB | Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | 13 sat | conj |
| 19 | the | the | DET | Definite=Def PronType=Art | 20 water | det |
| 20 | water | water | NOUN | Number=Sing | 18 sipped | obj |
| 21 | . | . | PUNCT | _ | 13 sat | punct |
Pragmatics
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | be in a quote | past | a owl | there | vn exist-47.1 «NP V»: agent=Theme | ||||
| 2 | fly in a quote | gerund | a owl not said here | a garden | vn run-51.3.2-2-1 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Theme across garden=Trajectory | ||||
| 3 | sit in a quote | past | owl | a well | vn assuming_position-50 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Agent over well=Location | ||||
| 4 | sip in a quote | past | owl not said here | the water | vn chew-39.2 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent water=Patient |
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/pg62509/39/85/