The Yellow Fairy Book, The Dragon and His Grandmother, sentence 1
There was once a great war, and the King had a great many soldiers, but he gave them so little pay that they could not live upon it.
Who acts: great war, King, soldiers · What happens: be, have, give, not live · To what, where: great many soldiers, little pay, soldiers, war
This is a sentence of «The Yellow Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Dragon and His Grandmother. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (great war, King, soldiers), 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 was | expl |
| 2 | was | be | VERB | Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | root | root |
| 3 | once | once | ADV | NumForm=Word NumType=Mult | 2 was | advmod |
| 4 | a | a | DET | Definite=Ind PronType=Art | 6 war | det |
| 5 | great | great | ADJ | Degree=Pos | 6 war | amod |
| 6 | war | war | NOUN | Number=Sing | 2 was | nsubj |
| 7 | , | , | PUNCT | _ | 11 had | punct |
| 8 | and | and | CCONJ | _ | 11 had | cc |
| 9 | the | the | DET | Definite=Def PronType=Art | 10 King | det |
| 10 | King | King | PROPN | Number=Sing | 11 had | nsubj |
| 11 | had | have | VERB | Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | 2 was | parataxis |
| 12 | a | a | DET | Definite=Ind PronType=Art | 15 soldiers | det |
| 13 | great | great | ADJ | Degree=Pos | 15 soldiers | amod |
| 14 | many | many | ADJ | Degree=Pos | 15 soldiers | amod |
| 15 | soldiers | soldier | NOUN | Number=Plur | 11 had | obj |
| 16 | , | , | PUNCT | _ | 19 gave | punct |
| 17 | but | but | CCONJ | _ | 19 gave | cc |
| 18 | he | he | PRON | Case=Nom Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs | 19 gave | nsubj |
| 19 | gave | give | VERB | Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | 11 had | conj |
| 20 | them | they | PRON | Case=Acc Number=Plur Person=3 PronType=Prs | 19 gave | iobj |
| 21 | so | so | ADV | _ | 22 little | advmod |
| 22 | little | little | ADJ | Degree=Pos | 23 pay | amod |
| 23 | pay | pay | NOUN | Number=Sing | 19 gave | obj |
| 24 | that | that | SCONJ | _ | 28 live | mark |
| 25 | they | they | PRON | Case=Nom Number=Plur Person=3 PronType=Prs | 28 live | nsubj |
| 26 | could | could | AUX | VerbForm=Fin | 28 live | aux |
| 27 | not | not | PART | Polarity=Neg | 28 live | advmod |
| 28 | live | live | VERB | VerbForm=Inf | 19 gave | advcl |
| 29 | upon | upon | ADP | _ | 30 it | case |
| 30 | it | it | PRON | Case=Acc Gender=Neut Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs | 28 live | obl |
| 31 | . | . | PUNCT | _ | 2 was | punct |
Pragmatics
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | be | past | a great war | there | once property | vn exist-47.1 «NP V»: agent=Theme | |||
| 2 | have | past | the King | a great many soldiers | vn birth-28.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent soldier=Patient | ||||
| 3 | give | past | King | little pay | soldiers = soldier | vn give-13.1-1 «NP V NP-Dative NP»: agent=Agent they=Recipient pay=Theme | |||
| 4 | not live | could | soldiers = soldier | war | vn exist-47.1-1 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Theme upon it=Location |
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/pg640/9/1/