The Yellow Fairy Book, The Witch (28), sentence 47

If she managed to get across it, they must throw the comb behind them and run for their lives, for where the comb fell a dense forest would start up, which would delay the witch so long that they would be able to get safely away.

Who acts: river, handkerchief, comb, dense forest · What happens: manage, get, throw, run, fall, start up · To what, where: ground, comb, witch

This is a sentence of «The Yellow Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Witch (28). The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (river, handkerchief, comb, dense forest), 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	If	if	SCONJ	_	3 managed	mark
2	she	she	PRON	Case=Nom Gender=Fem Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	3 managed	nsubj
3	managed	manage	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	11 throw	advcl
4	to	to	PART	_	5 get	mark
5	get	get	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	3 managed	xcomp
6	across	across	ADP	_	7 it	case
7	it	it	PRON	Case=Acc Gender=Neut Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	5 get	obl
8	,	,	PUNCT	_	3 managed	punct
9	they	they	PRON	Case=Nom Number=Plur Person=3 PronType=Prs	11 throw	nsubj
10	must	must	AUX	VerbForm=Fin	11 throw	aux
11	throw	throw	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	root	root
12	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	13 comb	det
13	comb	comb	NOUN	Number=Sing	11 throw	obj
14	behind	behind	ADP	_	15 them	case
15	them	they	PRON	Case=Acc Number=Plur Person=3 PronType=Prs	11 throw	obl
16	and	and	CCONJ	_	17 run	cc
17	run	run	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	11 throw	conj
18	for	for	ADP	_	20 lives	case
19	their	their	PRON	Case=Gen Number=Plur Person=3 Poss=Yes PronType=Prs	20 lives	nmod:poss
20	lives	life	NOUN	Number=Plur	17 run	obl
21	,	,	PUNCT	_	26 fell	punct
22	for	for	SCONJ	_	26 fell	mark
23	where	where	ADV	PronType=Rel	26 fell	advmod
24	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	25 comb	det
25	comb	comb	NOUN	Number=Sing	26 fell	nsubj
26	fell	fall	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	17 run	advcl
27	a	a	DET	Definite=Ind PronType=Art	29 forest	det
28	dense	dense	ADJ	Degree=Pos	29 forest	amod
29	forest	forest	NOUN	Number=Sing	31 start	nsubj
30	would	would	AUX	VerbForm=Fin	31 start	aux
31	start	start	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	26 fell	ccomp
32	up	up	ADP	_	31 start	compound:prt
33	,	,	PUNCT	_	36 delay	punct
34	which	which	PRON	PronType=Rel	36 delay	nsubj
35	would	would	AUX	VerbForm=Fin	36 delay	aux
36	delay	delay	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	31 start	conj
37	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	38 witch	det
38	witch	witch	NOUN	Number=Sing	36 delay	obj
39	so	so	ADV	_	40 long	advmod
40	long	long	ADV	Degree=Pos	36 delay	advmod
41	that	that	SCONJ	_	45 able	mark
42	they	they	PRON	Case=Nom Number=Plur Person=3 PronType=Prs	45 able	nsubj
43	would	would	AUX	VerbForm=Fin	45 able	aux
44	be	be	AUX	VerbForm=Inf	45 able	cop
45	able	able	ADJ	Degree=Pos	36 delay	advcl
46	to	to	PART	_	47 get	mark
47	get	get	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	45 able	xcomp
48	safely	safely	ADV	_	47 get	advmod
49	away	away	ADV	_	47 get	advmod
50	.	.	PUNCT	_	11 throw	punct

Pragmatics

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	where	other	roles by
1	manage a condition, not said to happen	past	river				vn succeed-74-1-1 «NP V S_INF»: agent=Agent clause=Eventuality
2	get	to-infinitive	river not said here		ground		vn escape-51.1 «NP V PP.destination»: agent=Theme across it=Destination
3	throw	must	handkerchief	the comb		behind wrens = wren	vn throw-17.1-1-1 «NP V NP PP.destinations»: agent=Agent comb=Theme behind they=Destination
4	run	infinitive	handkerchief not said here			for handkerchief's lives	vn preparing-26.3-1 «NP V NP PP.beneficiary»: agent=Agent for life=Beneficiary
5	fall	past	the comb				vn long-32.2 «NP V S_INF»: agent=Pivot clause=Theme
6	start up	would	a dense forest				vn begin-55.1-1-1 «NP.eventuality V»: agent=Eventuality
7	delay	would		the witch		long property	vn delay-53.3-1-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent witch=Source
8	is	would	handkerchief			able property	tree rules
9	get away	to-infinitive	handkerchief not said here			away, safely property	vn withdraw-82-2 «NP V»: 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/pg640/39/47/