The Yellow Fairy Book, The Steadfast Tin-soldier, sentence 138

This was a very good thing, for otherwise they would have torn each other in pieces, merely because the one was in front of the other.

Who acts: This, good thing, one · What happens: be, tear · To what, where: good thing, suitors, pieces, front

This is a sentence of «The Yellow Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Steadfast Tin-soldier. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (This, good thing, one), 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	This	this	PRON	Number=Sing PronType=Dem	6 thing	nsubj
2	was	be	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	6 thing	cop
3	a	a	DET	Definite=Ind PronType=Art	6 thing	det
4	very	very	ADV	_	5 good	advmod
5	good	good	ADJ	Degree=Pos	6 thing	amod
6	thing	thing	NOUN	Number=Sing	root	root
7	,	,	PUNCT	_	13 torn	punct
8	for	for	SCONJ	_	13 torn	mark
9	otherwise	otherwise	ADV	_	13 torn	advmod
10	they	they	PRON	Case=Nom Number=Plur Person=3 PronType=Prs	13 torn	nsubj:pass
11	would	would	AUX	VerbForm=Fin	13 torn	aux
12	have	have	AUX	VerbForm=Inf	13 torn	aux
13	torn	tear	VERB	Tense=Past VerbForm=Part Voice=Pass	6 thing	acl:relcl
14	each	each	DET	PronType=Tot	15 other	det
15	other	other	ADJ	Degree=Pos	13 torn	obj
16	in	in	ADP	_	17 pieces	case
17	pieces	piece	NOUN	Number=Plur	13 torn	obl
18	,	,	PUNCT	_	25 front	punct
19	merely	merely	ADV	_	25 front	advmod
20	because	because	SCONJ	_	25 front	mark
21	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	22 one	det
22	one	one	NOUN	Number=Sing	25 front	nsubj
23	was	be	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	25 front	cop
24	in	in	ADP	_	25 front	case
25	front	front	NOUN	Number=Sing	13 torn	obl
26	of	of	ADP	_	28 other	case
27	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	28 other	det
28	other	other	ADJ	Degree=Pos	25 front	nmod
29	.	.	PUNCT	_	6 thing	punct

Pragmatics

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	where	other	roles by
1	is a	past	This	a good thing			tree rules
2	tear	would · perfect · passive	a good thing not said here	suitors = suitor	pieces	otherwise property	vn break-45.1 «NP V NP ADJ»: subject=Patient other=Result
3	is	past	the one		front	of the other; merely property	tree rules

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/pg640/50/138/