The Yellow Fairy Book, A Story About a Darning-needle, sentence 16

‘Now she is good for nothing!’ said the Fingers; but they had to hold her tight while the cook dropped some sealing-wax on the needle and stuck it in the front of her dress.

Who acts: needle, Fingers, cook · What happens: be, say, have, hold, drop, stick · To what, where: Fingers, tight, sealing wax, needle, wax, front · Speech: someone speaks here

This is a sentence of «The Yellow Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, A Story About a Darning-needle. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (needle, Fingers, cook), 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	‘	'	PUNCT	_	5 good	punct
2	Now	now	ADV	PronType=Dem	5 good	advmod
3	she	she	PRON	Case=Nom Gender=Fem Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	5 good	nsubj
4	is	be	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	5 good	cop
5	good	good	ADJ	Degree=Pos	10 said	ccomp
6	for	for	ADP	_	7 nothing	case
7	nothing	nothing	PRON	Number=Sing PronType=Neg	5 good	obl
8	!	!	PUNCT	_	5 good	punct
9	’	'	PUNCT	_	5 good	punct
10	said	say	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=1 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	root	root
11	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	12 Fingers	det
12	Fingers	Finger	PROPN	Number=Plur	10 said	obj
13	;	;	PUNCT	_	16 had	punct
14	but	but	CCONJ	_	16 had	cc
15	they	they	PRON	Case=Nom Number=Plur Person=3 PronType=Prs	16 had	nsubj
16	had	have	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	10 said	parataxis
17	to	to	PART	_	18 hold	mark
18	hold	hold	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	16 had	xcomp
19	her	her	PRON	Case=Gen Gender=Fem Number=Sing Person=3 Poss=Yes PronType=Prs	20 tight	nmod:poss
20	tight	tight	ADJ	Degree=Pos	18 hold	obj
21	while	while	SCONJ	_	24 dropped	mark
22	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	23 cook	det
23	cook	cook	NOUN	Number=Sing	24 dropped	nsubj
24	dropped	drop	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	18 hold	advcl
25	some	some	DET	PronType=Ind	28 wax	det
26	sealing	sealing	NOUN	Number=Sing	28 wax	compound
27	-	-	PUNCT	_	26 sealing	punct
28	wax	wax	NOUN	Number=Sing	24 dropped	obj
29	on	on	ADP	_	31 needle	case
30	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	31 needle	det
31	needle	needle	NOUN	Number=Sing	28 wax	nmod
32	and	and	CCONJ	_	33 stuck	cc
33	stuck	stick	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	16 had	conj
34	it	it	PRON	Case=Acc Gender=Neut Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	33 stuck	obj
35	in	in	ADP	_	37 front	case
36	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	37 front	det
37	front	front	NOUN	Number=Sing	33 stuck	obl
38	of	of	ADP	_	40 dress	case
39	her	her	PRON	Case=Gen Gender=Fem Number=Sing Person=3 Poss=Yes PronType=Prs	40 dress	nmod:poss
40	dress	dress	NOUN	Number=Sing	37 front	nmod
41	.	.	PUNCT	_	10 said	punct

Pragmatics

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	is	present	needle			now	for nothing; good property	tree rules
2	say speech: assert	past		the Fingers				vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V NP.topic»: agent=Agent finger=Topic
3	have	past	Fingers = finger					tree rules
4	hold	to-infinitive	Fingers = finger not said here	needle's tight				vn keep-15.2 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent tight=Theme
5	drop	past	the cook	some sealing wax	the needle			vn put_direction-9.4 «NP V NP PP.destination»: agent=Agent wax=Theme on needle=Destination
6	stick	past	Fingers = finger not said here	wax	the front of needle's dress			vn spray-9.7-1 «NP V NP PP.destination»: agent=Agent it=Theme in front=Destination

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/pg640/51/16/