The Yellow Fairy Book, The Dragon of the North(2), sentence 117

Then he tried, at first only in play, and then seriously, to strike her with the knife, but an invisible wall of iron seemed to be between them, and the maiden stood before him laughing and unhurt.

Who acts: angel, invisible wall, maiden · What happens: try, strike, seem, be, stand, laugh · To what, where: play, maiden

This is a sentence of «The Yellow Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Dragon of the North(2). The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (angel, invisible wall, maiden), 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	Then	then	ADV	PronType=Dem	3 tried	advmod
2	he	he	PRON	Case=Nom Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	3 tried	nsubj
3	tried	try	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	root	root
4	,	,	PUNCT	_	9 play	punct
5	at	at	ADP	_	6 first	case
6	first	first	ADV	NumForm=Word NumType=Ord	9 play	obl
7	only	only	ADV	_	9 play	advmod
8	in	in	ADP	_	9 play	case
9	play	play	NOUN	Number=Sing	3 tried	obj
10	,	,	PUNCT	_	16 strike	punct
11	and	and	CCONJ	_	16 strike	cc
12	then	then	ADV	PronType=Dem	13 seriously	advmod
13	seriously	seriously	ADV	_	16 strike	advmod
14	,	,	PUNCT	_	16 strike	punct
15	to	to	PART	_	16 strike	mark
16	strike	strike	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	3 tried	conj
17	her	she	PRON	Case=Acc Gender=Fem Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	16 strike	obj
18	with	with	ADP	_	20 knife	case
19	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	20 knife	det
20	knife	knife	NOUN	Number=Sing	16 strike	obl
21	,	,	PUNCT	_	28 seemed	punct
22	but	but	CCONJ	_	28 seemed	cc
23	an	a	DET	Definite=Ind PronType=Art	25 wall	det
24	invisible	invisible	ADJ	Degree=Pos	25 wall	amod
25	wall	wall	NOUN	Number=Sing	28 seemed	nsubj
26	of	of	ADP	_	27 iron	case
27	iron	iron	NOUN	Number=Sing	25 wall	nmod
28	seemed	seem	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	3 tried	conj
29	to	to	PART	_	32 them	mark
30	be	be	AUX	VerbForm=Inf	32 them	cop
31	between	between	ADP	_	32 them	case
32	them	they	PRON	Case=Acc Number=Plur Person=3 PronType=Prs	28 seemed	xcomp
33	,	,	PUNCT	_	37 stood	punct
34	and	and	CCONJ	_	37 stood	cc
35	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	36 maiden	det
36	maiden	maiden	NOUN	Number=Sing	37 stood	nsubj
37	stood	stand	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	3 tried	conj
38	before	before	ADP	_	39 him	case
39	him	he	PRON	Case=Acc Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	37 stood	obl
40	laughing	laugh	VERB	VerbForm=Ger	37 stood	advcl
41	and	and	CCONJ	_	42 unhurt	cc
42	unhurt	unhurt	ADJ	Degree=Pos	40 laughing	conj
43	.	.	PUNCT	_	3 tried	punct

Pragmatics

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	when	other	roles by
1	try	past	angel	play	then		vn try-61.1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent play=Eventuality
2	strike	to-infinitive	angel not said here	maiden		with the knife; seriously property	vn hit-18.1-1 «NP V NP PP.instrument»: agent=Agent she=Patient with knife=Instrument
3	seem	past	a invisible wall of iron				vn seem-109-1-1-1 «NP V S_INF»: agent=Theme
4	is	to-infinitive	a invisible wall of iron not said here			between men = man	tree rules
5	stand	past	the maiden		before angel		vn assuming_position-50 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Agent before he=Location
6	laugh	gerund	the maiden not said here				vn nonverbal_expression-40.2 «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/pg640/5/117/