The Yellow Fairy Book, The Donkey Cabbage, part 2, sentence 56

But in spite of the deep shadows cast by the wide-spreading branches of the trees, the grass underneath was soft and green, and covered with the rarest flowers.

Who acts: grass · What happens: cast, spread, be, cover, spite · To what, where: deep shadows, spite

This is a sentence of «The Yellow Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Donkey Cabbage, part 2. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (grass), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

Parsed by Mova, not checked by a teacher. This tree is Mova's own parse (the en model, on the CPU, when the site is built); it may be wrong.

The tree

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	But	but	CCONJ	_	23 soft	cc
2	in	in	ADP	_	3 spite	case
3	spite	spite	NOUN	Number=Sing	23 soft	obl
4	of	of	ADP	_	7 shadows	case
5	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	7 shadows	det
6	deep	deep	ADJ	Degree=Pos	7 shadows	amod
7	shadows	shadow	NOUN	Number=Plur	3 spite	nmod
8	cast	cast	VERB	Tense=Past VerbForm=Part Voice=Pass	7 shadows	acl
9	by	by	ADP	_	14 branches	case
10	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	14 branches	det
11	wide	wide	ADJ	Degree=Pos	13 spreading	amod
12	-	-	PUNCT	_	11 wide	punct
13	spreading	spread	VERB	VerbForm=Ger	14 branches	amod
14	branches	branch	NOUN	Number=Plur	8 cast	obl
15	of	of	ADP	_	17 trees	case
16	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	17 trees	det
17	trees	tree	NOUN	Number=Plur	14 branches	nmod
18	,	,	PUNCT	_	3 spite	punct
19	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	20 grass	det
20	grass	grass	NOUN	Number=Sing	23 soft	nsubj
21	underneath	underneath	ADV	_	20 grass	advmod
22	was	be	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	23 soft	cop
23	soft	soft	ADJ	Degree=Pos	root	root
24	and	and	CCONJ	_	25 green	cc
25	green	green	ADJ	Degree=Pos	23 soft	conj
26	,	,	PUNCT	_	28 covered	punct
27	and	and	CCONJ	_	28 covered	cc
28	covered	cover	VERB	Tense=Past VerbForm=Part Voice=Pass	23 soft	conj
29	with	with	ADP	_	32 flowers	case
30	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	32 flowers	det
31	rarest	rare	ADJ	Degree=Sup	32 flowers	amod
32	flowers	flower	NOUN	Number=Plur	28 covered	obl
33	.	.	PUNCT	_	23 soft	punct

Pragmatics

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	where	other	roles by
1	cast	participle		the deep shadows not said here		by the spreading branches of the trees	vn throw-17.1 «NP V NP PP.destinations»: agent=Agent by branch=Destination
2	spread	gerund					vn appear-48.1.1 «NP V»: agent=Theme
3	is	past	the grass		spite of the deep shadows	soft property	tree rules
4	be		the grass not said here				tree rules
5	cover	participle	the grass not said here			with the rarest flowers	vn fill-9.8-1 «NP V NP PP.theme»: agent=Agent with flower=Theme
6	spite			the deep shadows			nom spite «feeling transitive»: of=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: «The Yellow Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Project Gutenberg book 640 (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/pg640/11/56/