The Yellow Fairy Book, The White Duck, sentence 64
But, though they ran to and fro, the duck always fled past them, and would not let herself be caught.
Who acts: words, duck · What happens: run, fro, flee, not let, catch · To what, where: Duck
This is a sentence of «The Yellow Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The White Duck. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (words, duck), 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 | _ | 13 fled | cc |
| 2 | , | , | PUNCT | _ | 1 But | punct |
| 3 | though | though | SCONJ | _ | 5 ran | mark |
| 4 | they | they | PRON | Case=Nom Number=Plur Person=3 PronType=Prs | 5 ran | nsubj |
| 5 | ran | run | VERB | Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | 13 fled | advcl |
| 6 | to | to | ADP | _ | 5 ran | obl |
| 7 | and | and | CCONJ | _ | 8 fro | cc |
| 8 | fro | fro | VERB | VerbForm=Inf | 5 ran | conj |
| 9 | , | , | PUNCT | _ | 5 ran | punct |
| 10 | the | the | DET | Definite=Def PronType=Art | 11 duck | det |
| 11 | duck | duck | NOUN | Number=Sing | 13 fled | nsubj |
| 12 | always | always | ADV | PronType=Tot | 13 fled | advmod |
| 13 | fled | flee | VERB | Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | root | root |
| 14 | past | past | ADP | _ | 15 them | case |
| 15 | them | they | PRON | Case=Acc Number=Plur Person=3 PronType=Prs | 13 fled | obl |
| 16 | , | , | PUNCT | _ | 20 let | punct |
| 17 | and | and | CCONJ | _ | 20 let | cc |
| 18 | would | would | AUX | VerbForm=Fin | 20 let | aux |
| 19 | not | not | PART | Polarity=Neg | 20 let | advmod |
| 20 | let | let | VERB | VerbForm=Inf | 13 fled | conj |
| 21 | herself | herself | PRON | Case=Acc Gender=Fem Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs Reflex=Yes | 20 let | obj |
| 22 | be | be | AUX | VerbForm=Inf | 23 caught | aux:pass |
| 23 | caught | catch | VERB | Tense=Past VerbForm=Part Voice=Pass | 20 let | xcomp |
| 24 | . | . | PUNCT | _ | 13 fled | punct |
Pragmatics
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | run | past | words = word | vn run-51.3.2-2-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme | |||||
| 2 | fro | infinitive | words = word not said here | tree rules | |||||
| 3 | flee | past | the duck | past words = word; always property | vn escape-51.1-1-1 «NP V PP.initial_location»: agent=Theme past they=Initial_Location | ||||
| 4 | not let | would | the duck not said here | Duck | tree rules | ||||
| 5 | catch | infinitive · passive | Duck not said here | vn get-13.5.1 «NP V NP» |
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/pg640/29/64/