The Yellow Fairy Book, The Blue Mountains, sentence 1

There were once a Scotsman and an Englishman and an Irishman serving in the army together, who took it into their heads to run away on the first opportunity they could get.

Who acts: Scotsman, Irishman · What happens: be, serve, take, run away, get · To what, where: army, heads, first opportunity

This is a sentence of «The Yellow Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Blue Mountains. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Scotsman, Irishman), 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	There	there	PRON	PronType=Dem	2 were	expl
2	were	be	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	root	root
3	once	once	ADV	NumForm=Word NumType=Mult	5 Scotsman	advmod
4	a	a	DET	Definite=Ind PronType=Art	5 Scotsman	det
5	Scotsman	Scotsman	PROPN	Number=Sing	2 were	nsubj
6	and	and	CCONJ	_	8 Englishman	cc
7	an	a	DET	Definite=Ind PronType=Art	8 Englishman	det
8	Englishman	Englishman	PROPN	Number=Sing	5 Scotsman	conj
9	and	and	CCONJ	_	11 Irishman	cc
10	an	a	DET	Definite=Ind PronType=Art	11 Irishman	det
11	Irishman	irishman	NOUN	Number=Sing	5 Scotsman	conj
12	serving	serve	VERB	VerbForm=Ger	11 Irishman	acl
13	in	in	ADP	_	15 army	case
14	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	15 army	det
15	army	army	NOUN	Number=Sing	12 serving	obl
16	together	together	ADV	_	12 serving	advmod
17	,	,	PUNCT	_	19 took	punct
18	who	who	PRON	PronType=Rel	19 took	nsubj
19	took	take	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	5 Scotsman	acl:relcl
20	it	it	PRON	Case=Acc Gender=Neut Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	19 took	obj
21	into	into	ADP	_	23 heads	case
22	their	their	PRON	Case=Gen Number=Plur Person=3 Poss=Yes PronType=Prs	23 heads	nmod:poss
23	heads	head	NOUN	Number=Plur	19 took	obl
24	to	to	PART	_	25 run	mark
25	run	run	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	19 took	advcl
26	away	away	ADV	_	25 run	advmod
27	on	on	ADP	_	30 opportunity	case
28	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	30 opportunity	det
29	first	first	ADJ	Degree=Pos NumForm=Word NumType=Ord	30 opportunity	amod
30	opportunity	opportunity	NOUN	Number=Sing	25 run	obl
31	they	they	PRON	Case=Nom Number=Plur Person=3 PronType=Prs	33 get	nsubj
32	could	could	AUX	VerbForm=Fin	33 get	aux
33	get	get	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	30 opportunity	acl:relcl
34	.	.	PUNCT	_	2 were	punct

Pragmatics

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	where	other	roles by
1	be	past	a Scotsman and a Englishman and a Irishman		there		vn exist-47.1 «NP V»: agent=Theme
2	serve	gerund	a Irishman not said here			in the army; together property	vn masquerade-29.6-2 «NP V PP.attribute»: agent=Agent in army=Attribute
3	take	past	a Scotsman and a Englishman and a Irishman	army	Scotsman's heads		vn bring-11.3 «NP V NP PP.destination»: agent=Agent it=Theme into head=Destination
4	run away	to-infinitive	a Scotsman and a Englishman and a Irishman not said here		the first opportunity	away property	vn run-51.3.2-2-1 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Theme on opportunity=Trajectory
5	get	could	Scotsman	the first opportunity not said here			vn comprehend-87.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Experiencer opportunity=Stimulus

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/pg640/45/1/