The Yellow Fairy Book, The Glass Mountain(16), part 1, sentence 62

‘Fly down and ask what the matter is,’ he said to the little bird, who sped off like lightning and soon returned saying:

Who acts: matter, swallow, little bird · What happens: fly down, ask, be, say, speed off, return · Speech: someone speaks here

This is a sentence of «The Yellow Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Glass Mountain(16), part 1. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (matter, swallow, little bird), 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	‘	'	PUNCT	_	2 Fly	punct
2	Fly	fly	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	13 said	ccomp
3	down	down	ADV	_	2 Fly	advmod
4	and	and	CCONJ	_	5 ask	cc
5	ask	ask	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	2 Fly	conj
6	what	what	PRON	PronType=Int	5 ask	ccomp
7	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	8 matter	det
8	matter	matter	NOUN	Number=Sing	6 what	nsubj
9	is	be	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	6 what	cop
10	,	,	PUNCT	_	2 Fly	punct
11	’	'	PUNCT	_	2 Fly	punct
12	he	he	PRON	Case=Nom Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	13 said	nsubj
13	said	say	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	root	root
14	to	to	ADP	_	17 bird	case
15	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	17 bird	det
16	little	little	ADJ	Degree=Pos	17 bird	amod
17	bird	bird	NOUN	Number=Sing	13 said	obl
18	,	,	PUNCT	_	20 sped	punct
19	who	who	PRON	PronType=Rel	20 sped	nsubj
20	sped	speed	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	17 bird	acl:relcl
21	off	off	ADP	_	20 sped	compound:prt
22	like	like	ADP	_	23 lightning	case
23	lightning	lightning	NOUN	Number=Sing	20 sped	obl
24	and	and	CCONJ	_	26 returned	cc
25	soon	soon	ADV	Degree=Pos	26 returned	advmod
26	returned	return	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	20 sped	conj
27	saying	say	VERB	VerbForm=Ger	26 returned	xcomp
28	:	:	PUNCT	_	13 said	punct

Pragmatics

#	verb	tense, mood	who	other	roles by
1	fly down	infinitive		down property	vn spatial_configuration-47.6-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme
2	ask speech: ask	infinitive			vn inquire-37.1.2 «NP V»: agent=Agent
3	is a	present	the matter		tree rules
4	say speech: assert	past	swallow	to the little bird	vn indicate-78-1 «NP V PP.recipient that S»: agent=Pivot to bird=Experiencer clause=Topic
5	speed off	past	the little bird	like lightning	vn run-51.3.2-2 «NP V»: agent=Theme
6	return	past	the little bird not said here	soon property	tree rules
7	say speech: assert	gerund	the little bird not said here		vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=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: «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/pg640/22/62/